


Shreds and Splits

by onebillionstars



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn, also a lot of side characters, i'm sorry about that but they're all necessary i promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-03 07:27:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5282060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onebillionstars/pseuds/onebillionstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter War/WW2 AU. Tino Väinämöinen is a reluctant member of the Finnish resistance who wants nothing more than to remain in his mundane life. But everything changes when a certain Swedish soldier shows up, and Tino is thrown into battle after battle. Terrified and dazed, he must weigh his country against his own safety, and things he isn't willing to admit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sequence 1: Sattuma/Chans

**Author's Note:**

> Hetalia, and all of its characters, belong to Himaruya Hidekaz. The only thing I own here is the scenario.
> 
> Here it is, long time coming. My first full-length work. (Hopefully) enjoy, and please review.

 

_**Sequence 1: Sattuma/Chans** _

* * *

_**November**   **2**_ **_nd_ _, 1939_ **

...

Everyone knew the Russian winter.

They all knew the postcard photos of a snow-covered Red Square, St. Basil watching over it like some foreboding god. They knew of the Siberian freezes; of landscapes covered in a glimmering shell of ice. They knew that Russia wore the winter like a coat- a very long one that covered the land, head to toe.

But no one knew the Finnish winter.

He supposed that was one advantage they had, in these coming months. Just like Russia, they wore their winter well.

There had been rumors of Russian invasion for the past two months, ever since World War II had broken. The Finns knew full well that they had a dangerous, and pretty damn unpredictable, neighbor with a hunger for territory. From the view of the rest of the world, Russia's unofficial motto was "The Bigger, the Better!".

In Tino's opinion at least, the Soviets enjoyed having them under their thumb. Their independence from them had only just been achieved a few years before Tino had been born, and it seemed that they didn't want to let go of their Grand Duchy without leaving them a parting message. So, gossip had been running through any place in Finland where there were newspapers and radio.

That's where he was now, scrambling into the last seat in a bar that had a radio to broadcast any incoming news. The last time Tino had seen this many people in the old, slightly crooked building was when the War broke out. He had to no clue what was going on, but he was just glad to have crammed himself through the door, not without the valiant sacrifice of his now-torn coat.

He heard the telltale eruption of static, meaning that Aabel, the old owner of the place, was trying to tune it onto a main frequency. Tino gently tried to push forward against the throngs of bigger people, made even larger with their heavy coats. He felt rude, and uttered constant "excuse me"s and "sorry"s as people's elbows found their way into bumping into his ribcage. Finally, he managed to get to the front of the crowd, where he could actually see the shining radio, polished with care and pride.

"Hey, Tino" A man next to him turned his face, a very familiar one.

"Feija! It's been so long since I saw you last. How are you?"

"Ha. What do you think?"

Feija was about ten years older than him, and had inherited his parents' strong Finnish nationalism they had acquired during the independence movement. He had been Tino's, and the town's, best source of information in the chaotic mash of recent events, and although no one out-right questioned it, people worried how he got it. If things took a turn for the worst despite Finland's relative neutrality, everyone had a silent acknowledgment that Feija would turn into one of those people you read about in school and wrote reports on.

"Nervous or ready for conflict?" Tino asked.

"Wouldn't say 'ready for conflict'," he paused. "But ready for action."

Those meant the same thing, and Feija knew that damn well, as did Tino.

"Well, soldier, I wouldn't make a good second-in-command, would I?"

"You, fighting? God, Tino, hell would freeze over before you killed a man."

"You know where we live, don't you?" Tino raised an eyebrow. "Don't make such quick assumptions."

That got a laugh out of Feija. "Maybe, maybe. Well you'd make a-"

Whatever he was going to say got quickly cut off as the radio sprung to life. Feija's head snapped forward, eyebrows knit together in concentration. Tino had always thought he looked silly like that, but Feija thought it looked 'stern' for some ungodly reason. Regardless of his friend's totally unintentional antics, Tino turned his attention to the radio.

The frequency was still layered over with static, but that was expected since they were a small border town. The whole population has become skilled interpreters of the half-cancelled-out voice of the ever-changing broadcasters.

The level of focus only increased as, finally, snippets of speech began to fill the room. Tino could hear hushed murmurs of conversation as people became anxious. He glanced back over to his left. Feija seemed to be humming with excitement, his knuckles white on the edge of the bar top.

Finally, the bits and pieces of news strung together into a stable frequency. The only obstacle now between him and the radio was the quiet hum of a restless crowd. They were all as anxious as he was, but it seemed that no one who fell in that category had the brain to realize adding noise to a tense atmosphere would not help. At all. Thankfully, he was within about a meter of the speakers, so hearing wasn't too difficult.

"Recently, Finnish diplomats traveled to the Soviet… negotiate the demands for land," This one was new; a female broadcaster. They hadn't had one of those in a while. Her voice was smooth, even through the static.

However, her honey voice did nothing to lessen the impact that her next statement brought.

"The Soviets were unsatisfied… a failed endeavor."

You could hear a pin drop in the room.

Instead, it was a glass that came clattering to the floor, rolling loudly across the worn wooden panels.

"The results of… are unpredictable. But… me, a friendly suggestion. Have a gun ready," A break. "Goodnight, Finland."

"Failed?" Aabel said softly, in a near whisper, his hand still resting on the radio knob.

For another moment, the room was filled with a stifling silence. It pushed at Tino's temples, and made his eyes hurt. Then, everything and everyone erupted in noise.

"Those fuckers!" One voice called.

"Who do they think they are? This is our country, not theirs!"

Voices joined in tandem with the strong ones, creating a wave of sound that continued to crash into the front of the room- directly onto Tino's already ringing ears. The mix of other emotions- anger, resentment, indifference, passion- came along with the sound. It was overwhelming, simply being inside the room. Tino didn't know that a single room could contain so much without bursting and splitting open the beams.

"Everyone!" Feija called next to him, not even above the noise.

He tried several more times, but the angry chatter overcame any futile attempts his voice- although strong- made. Finally, wrinkles etched in his forehead from anger, he threw his leg over the stool and onto the bar top, hauling himself up and on the old wooden counter.

"Everyone!" He shouted again, his hands cupped around his mouth. To Tino's surprise, it actually managed to rise above the cacophony of noise.

The crowd died down, their attention to the already tall man towering over them.

"As much as we hate to admit it, we knew this was coming." He said, voice steady. "The Soviets aren't coming now, but they will,"

There was another angry murmur from the crowd.

"Trust me, they will." He set his face in resolve, his tone changing slightly. "And we need to be ready for that day, whenever it may come. Whether that be next week, or the next decade."

Tino looked out and saw some of the faces in the dim room light up with a fire that only bloodlust could bring. It almost made Tino scared.

"So, I stand before you here," His voice raised, booming into the rafters. "And I ask you, to join me. We will fight for and defend Finland until our very last breaths. Who will fight?"

The room was filled with sound again, the people cheering and chanting the beginnings of some sort of battle cry. It was just scraps of the national anthem, but from the way they sang it, you would have thought it was a hymn.

"Anyone can fight! No matter if you're weak, if you're young. Fight!" Feija peered down at him from his perch. "Like, you, Tino. You will fight, yes?"

The way he said it, it certainly wasn't a question. It was a demand- one that held no room for negotiation, or backing out. "Y-yes." He spoke softly, as always. He was so different from Feija. He wouldn't make a good soldier. Who was he kidding?

But, nonetheless, he quietly joined in the rally cries, his uncertainty not even heard by those right next to him.

* * *

_November 14_ _th_ _, 1939_

_..._

It had been almost two weeks since the announcement of the Soviets' rejection of cooperation, and people had already flocked to the rag-tag militias that were springing up in every border town for miles. Feija's voice had been the strongest, inspiring neighbors to start gathering supplies, and convincing their townspeople that grabbing a gun and a pair of skis was the right thing to do. His message had traveled all the way up to where Finland met Norway, as had people he had sent to spread it. Thankfully, Tino had managed to convince Feija that he was not one to travel hundreds of kilometers from home to go and recruit.

Instead, he was sent a town over to the east. But, at least it wasn't all that scary. He would rather go two kilometers than seventy.

Tino now stood in an old shack, more of a covered lean-to at this point than a proper building, with three others. He had on four layers of shirts and sweaters underneath his heavy coat, but the cold wind still crept down his collar. He desperately clung onto a cup of coffee in his hands, but that did pretty much absolutely nothing to warm him. Besides, it was practically frozen in the winter air, let alone even lukewarm.

The majority of the townspeople had already told them their decision when it came to recruitment yesterday afternoon. The only reason they were still here, standing out in the unbearable Finnish cold, was because  _they_  were late. Select members of the Swedish Volunteer Corps had been covertly sent over by their long-time ally next door and, as luck would have it, they were stuck in the snow too. They were supposed to have arrived the other morning, but here Tino was, waiting two days later.

He sighed, leaning against a rough wooden post. If he hadn't had a million layers on, he would have gotten little splinters all over his back. Tino hated splinters; they were one of the peskiest injuries. This building- if you could even call it that- really needed a new paint job at the very least.

"Oy, Tino, d'ya have any idea when they're gonna get here?" A man named Liam called to him. He was standing a little farther out, peering into the vast cold surrounding the edge of the town.

"I know just as much as you do. I'm afraid I'm not the one to ask."

Liam was a foot soldier, the same position Tino currently held. Neither of them really knew what that position meant, but they knew that they would have to find guns. That was really the only criteria given to them. Maybe they'd be the ones that foolishly ran into the enemies first. Maybe they'd be dead by next week. Who knew anyway?

Tired of waiting, Liam walked back and joined Tino, his side leaning against the same post. He ruffled around his pocket for a minute, gloves making it difficult to grip things, until he emerged victorious with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He fumbled with the opening of the tab on the box, face lighting up victoriously.

"Wanna light?" He asked, holding an unlit cigarette in front of Tino.

He shook his head. "Oh, no, thank you. I don't smoke."

"Whatever. Don't know why. Everyone does these days." Liam proceeding to cup his hand around the cigarette hanging from his lip, managing to light despite the whistle of wind whipping Tino's hair around his face.

So they stood there in a comfortable silence for a while, the smell of cigarette smoke hanging around them. Tino looked out at the horizon, the sky nearly as pale as the snow-clad ground. That was something he had always liked about the winter. No matter the time, the sky seemed to always be a pale, eerie gray, turned light by the vast landscape it shown over. He wondered if they had the same skies in Russia.

"Hey!" A faint voice called, coming from a running figure that was rapidly approaching them.

The man kept coming closer, as fast as he could given the foot of snow at their feet, legs furiously moving. When he finally reached them, he doubled over, hands on his knees, and Tino could see the large puffs of air leave his mouth as he tried to catch his breath. Trying, but failing miserably. "They're-They're here. The train finally just came in. They should be here in five minutes or so."

"Thank god. I was gettin' tired of waiting." Liam said with a bit of a laugh. "I can finally get out of this damn cold.

"You live in Finland, Liam. You should be used to it by now." The man said, still gasping.

"So? Doesn't mean I like standin' out in it for three days." He threw his cigarette to the ground, toeing it into the snow, leaving a tiny circular indentation in the pristine white.

"We'll be done soon." Tino said with a slight smile. "Then we can go home."

Liam scoffed, crossing his arms and staring at the direction of the train station.

To be completely honest, Tino desperately wanted to get out of the cold too. Although he had spent weeks outside doing work, he always preferred buildings filled with the heat of fireplaces. He had a cozy home waiting for him back in town… Well, it was just a little more time. He too looked to the direction of the train station, squinting, as though that would make them appear faster.

It didn't, but he saw a faint, dark blue shape crest over the horizon.

"Finally," Liam said, glaring pointedly at the group of people.

When they finally reached them, Tino felt a little overwhelmed. Now, his height was never something he had really thought about. He wasn't exactly tall, but it wasn't like he was shorter than the majority of the town. But, when the Swedes walked toward him, he felt himself having to look up. Very far up.

Everyone knew the stereotype that Swedes were tall, but this was uncalled for. He felt, well… inferior. The entire group towered above him, an intimidating wall of deep royal blue. They looked down at him, and although he couldn't speak a lick of Swedish, he could tell by their tones of voice that they were making cracks about something.

A chorus of soft laughs arose, most of them deep and gravelly. Not exactly pretty to hear, but not entirely unpleasant either. Except this one guy. Whatever the joke was, he didn't find it funny. At all. Tino spotted him standing in the back, slightly distanced from the others, as though he felt a sense of isolation in the group. Maybe his comrades hated his lack of a sense of humor. Maybe he just didn't like people. Either way, the especially tall man seemed to be cut off from the rest by some tiny invisible wall.

Tino wondered if you could actually make walls out of air. He wasn't exactly well-educated in science. He had read things about psychology and even philosophy, but he knew very little about hard science. He knew that water boiled if it was hot enough and it froze if it was cold enough. He knew that rainstorms and snowstorms were caused by air currents and evaporated water, and he knew that radiation would give you cancer. His knowledge stopped right about there. So, he wondered if walls could be made of air, and then he wondered why on earth that mattered in his current situation.

He grabbed for a clipboard that had been sitting, neglected, on the small table they set up a while ago. "Okay," He cleared his throat. "I'll be splitting you up into sections. You'll follow one of the three of us back to where you're supposed to be, alright?" He had no idea how much Finnish they knew, but he spoke as simply as he could.

They nodded, looking as though they understood.

Tino read off seven names, his pronunciation stumbling a little bit. The language was harsh on his tongue, and felt strange in his mouth. He heard a few snickers in the crowd that he didn't have the courage to send a sharp look to. "You, go with Liam, you'll be helping with weapons for a while."

The group of men split off, following the other small man through the knee-high snow.

Tino turned back, reading off the next six names, pointing them in the direction the out-of-breath man from earlier had already started walking. The snow seemed only calf-high for them, much easier to move in. Tino felt a twinge of jealously. The snow was terrible to move in…

He looked for the last names that he would be taking somewhere, but only found one listed under his charge. Berwald Oxenstierna. He looked up at the last man left, and found it to be the same, distanced man from earlier.

"Well, um," Tino paused, feeling awkward. He never had been that great in meeting people alone for the first time. "We'll be scouting for posts near the other villages. Right over that way." He pointed in a general direction, hoping the man would start to move.

And, he didn't.

"I can't see righ' n'w," The man said timidly. "Waitin' fer my glasses to g't here. Broke m' last pair." His voice was quieter than he would have expected for the giant man. His words were halting, and he almost sounded afraid to talk.

"Oh," Tino said, trying to figure how they were supposed to scout things when only two out of four of their eyes worked. The Swede would be a bit of a dead weight, and Tino didn't have the slightest clue what he was doing. This would be fun.

He reached over and grabbed the Swede's heavy jacket sleeve. "Just follow me I suppose."

The Swede followed along, blurry eyes trailing him as he began a trek through the snow towards a direction Tino had no idea what held. They slowly approached an embankment of slight trees at the outer edge of the village. The young boughs were too heavy with snow, their limbs arching towards the ground, and the trunks were no wider than Tino's leg.

"So, what's your name?" Tino was terrible at small talk, but he figured it would fill the time he spent blindly stumbling towards the border village, leading an even blinder man.

"It w's on the rost'r," He replied gruffly. "Berwald."

"O-oh, of course," The people of Finland were notoriously bad at small talk, and when one's conversation partner spoke in a rather unwelcoming-sounding voice, it wasn't exactly any easier. "I'm Tino," He finished.

He heard Berwald grunt in response. Tino figured it was a fitting way for a scary-faced man to say 'Yes, it is lovely to meet you, Tino.'.

They fell silent again, the only sounds being the tell-tale crunch of hard-packed snow underneath their feet. Whenever Tino looked back to make sure Berwald hadn't smacked into a tree, he saw their two sets of footprints, one set substantially larger than the other. It looked strange, just two of them. Why in the hell did Feija give him just one man to accompany, while his companions from earlier had groups they wouldn't have to awkwardly distract with attempted pleasantries? He shook his head to himself.

He peeked back again, making sure the less-than-able-sighted man was still on his heels. He turned around just in time to see Berwald trip over god-knows-what and stumble face-first into the snow. He heard a faint, "'m fine."

Sighing, Tino walked over and helped up the giant man. When he was on his feet, he looked at Berwald. "Can you even see anything?"

He shrugged. From what Tino gathered, he wasn't exactly the best with words.

"Fine. How many fingers am I holding up?" Tino held up his index and middle fingers, which were less than a meter away from Berwald's face.

"Four?" He guessed, clearly.

Tino cast his eyes downward. He hoped nothing, or no one, attacked them because the two were about as useless as they could be.

"Yer eyes 're viol't," Berwald said suddenly.

"What?" Tino looked at him quizzically.

"I c'n see that m'ch," Berwald looked steadier now. "They're nice,"

"Um," Tino wasn't exactly used to compliments. He was awkwardly feminine and hardly got out much anyway. "Yours are I nice too I think."

As much as he mentally berated himself for the inability to say 'thank you', the other man's eyes were nice, for lack of a better word. With his eyebrows downturned, and his eyelids twisted up in a squint, he looked terrifying, Tino would admit that. He had wanted to run away every time he met his gaze so far, but his irises were an immensely deep blue.

"Don't trip again, okay?" Tino said, letting out a breath of air. He turned, and murmured a "You're the one with the gun," just out of earshot, and continued walking, trying to look like he was moving with purpose.

Then, the silence fell once more, still uncomfortable, and still awkward. They continued on like that for a while, the wind pushing against the bundles of clothing, chapping Tino's lips, and forcing his eyes to squint. He hoped he didn't look as scary as Berwald…

"Where 're we goin'?"

Tino 's head whipped back and looked at Berwald, sputtering a response. "Um… Somewhere important," His tone was full of cluelessness. He felt his cheeks flush out of embarrassment.

Prompted by the disbelieving look from Berwald, he sighed, his shoulders slumping. "I have no idea what I'm doing," His eyes continued to be glued to the ground. "I mean it's not like I really signed up for this. Feija wanted me to, and he asked me in front of all of these people right after the big radio announcement and how could I say no there? That would have been terrible and I couldn't have had the courage, even if he asked me privately. He just has this tone of vice that makes you oblige and I… I'm rambling, I'm sorry." He ran his palm down his face tiredly.

Berwald wasn't saying anything. Whether that was because the man couldn't speak, or wouldn't speak, Tino wasn't really that sure. If he couldn't respond after one of Tino's rambles, this one, however, was short, it was entirely reasonable.

"Jus' keep goin' the way ya were," Berwald voiced quietly.

Tino looked at him, cheeks still ruddy with chagrin. He nodded and continued to tread on in the same direction, heading to an abstract destination near the border. About all he knew was that it was a relatively low population town, more of an outpost than a town really. But, it was supposed to be a good vantage point, situated on the crest of a hill, so he could understand why Feija had sent them there.

However, all of the hills rising from the forest around Tino all seemed the same. No signs, no buildings, and certainly no towns. Granted, they were in more of a gulley than a hill at the moment, but his frantic eyes had been scanning for a while now.

He thought about asking if the tall man behind him could see anything, then remembered he couldn't tell two fingers from four, and scratched out that idea.

Silence fell once again, no less uncomfortable, and no less thick. Berwald, with the advantage of long, tall legs, had caught up to Tino, now walking just a step behind him. That was almost even more intimidating, having him right out of Tino's periphery. He felt himself shiver, and not from the cold. He was never cold. He was sure Berwald didn't mean it, but why did he have to look so damn scary?

"So, do you have any family?" Tino asked, desperate to break the silence between the two of them, and the frozen world around them.

Berwald made a small mmm-mmm, the volume of his voice completely contradicting his size.

"No family, huh?" At least, that's what Tino took that sound to mean. "My parents died a few years ago. There was this big sickness that kind of swept over the town. A lot of people got it."

"'m sorry 'bout th't."

"Yeah, but it's in the past so…" He cleared his throat. "I have some distant family in the Baltics. Ya know, cousins three times removed and stuff. They're nice. Don't see 'em much though."

He was met with more silence. He guessed that no amount of awkward side conversation would do anything about that, so he resigned himself to staying quiet.

Well, that didn't last long, but, finally, minutes after yet another failed exchange (attempt number eight) , Tino spotted a small outcropping of buildings not too far away.

"Oh! Thank goodness." Tino said, his voice laced with obvious relief. "They need to get some road signs around here. If we had turned wrong just once…"

"Mm."

Ah, yes. Such great talks. They made quite the pair of conversationalists. Really they did.

As they approached, Tino was able to notice the bit of hustle-and-bustle taking place in the town. He could see people moving in and out of buildings, wooden crates in hand. And this distance, everything seemed normal enough. They were probably preparing just like everyone else, gathering arms and supplies for any sort of future armed resistance.

"Looks like someone already got word here." Tino said to Berwald, still not wanting to turn and look at him. Too scary. "A lot of crates."

"Crates?" Berwald said.

"Yep. Wooden ones. They look mostly small, but there are some weirdly-shaped ones too. I wonder what's in those…"

As they approached the clearing around the hill, Berwald grabbed the back of jacket, his fingers digging in and stopping Tino from moving.

"What?" He quickly scrambled out of Berwald's grip.

"Wait," Berwald stopped just short of the tree line. "Somethin' wrong."

Tino sighed, a little exasperated. They had trekked out in the Finnish wilderness for a good hour or so, and Tino just wanted to go back home to his bed and forget about all of this rebellion stuff. He was a serious person, and he understood the sort of situation that was rapidly descending upon the Finnish people, but was fighting really the way to clear it up?

So, he complied, and the two of them stood there for a few moments.

"Look at the b'xes,"

"What about them? I already told you they're-"

"Symb'ls." Berwald said, a little more forcefully than he had spoken before.

"Symbols?" Tino couldn't possibly see anything that small from this distance, even with his uncannily good eyesight. He squinted, hoping he didn't look as scary as the Swede when he did, and tried to see any lines or splashes of color on the crates. "I don't see any."

"People carryin' 'em then,"

Tino hadn't thought to look at the townspeople before. Why did it matter anyway? But, he complied. "They're all wearing one color. Kind of a green-y beige."

He could feel Berwald's gaze bored into him, not-so-subtly urging him to continue..

"Uniforms maybe? I don't know." He squinted harder, but nothing came into clearer focus. "But our uniforms are gray…" It was a half-muttered thought, nothing of great importance.

"Gray?" Tino thought he detected a hint of urgency and surprise in his voice.

"Well that's what they were when they came to draft people for the War last week and-"

Berwald backed up suddenly, nearly into another tree.

"What?" Tino threw him an albeit nervous, but exasperated look. "I guess they changed colors or something I mean it's nothing to worry about, right?"

Berwald's head shook minutely. "'t's not Finnish,"

Tino began walking over to the ill-balanced Swede, but stopped midstep with his next, halting words.

"t's Soviets."

"What?" Tino looked at him in disbelief. "They haven't invaded or anything yet. Why would they be here? Are you sure about this I mean-" Tino cut himself off. Yes, Berwald couldn't see, but he probably knew more than Tino did about military uniforms right? It would make sense.

"So are we heading back? We have to tell Feija."

Berwald nodded, his face still unmoving.

So, they set off again, back to where they started.

Tino's boots were soaking wet at this point, trying to fight through the snow and the compacted ice beneath his feet. His lips were wind-chapped, and he felt his cheeks become pink from the blistering, crisp air. Despite his wet socks, and the snow accumulating on strands of his hair, he didn't feel cold, his bones still warm. Part of it might have been due to his pounding heart, ricocheting off of his ribcage. His parents had always told him that he was a nervous person, and the very idea of brining Feija disheartening news admittedly terrified him. What would he say? How would he react? Tino had always known him to be pretty calm, but stress does things to people.

So, he suffered quietly in silence, his pulse booming in his fingertips.

After a time, he felt it slow, and with it, the time around him. The snowflakes seemed to fall slower, and his footsteps- even heavier. So, he wasn't panicking, but now he was anxious. Nail-bitingly so.

"S-so," He started, desperate to get his mind on something else. "What do you think about all of this? The war and everything."

Berwald didn't give him a glance but he answered, succinct and blunt. "'t's inev'table, but 't's still stupid."

"Stupid?" Tino was admittedly a little shocked at his word choice. "Why do you think that."

"'m not a fan o' war."

Sweden hadn't been involved in a war in one hundred and thirty years. Tino supposed that it made sense he was against fighting. But, he still felt almost insulted for some reason. He guessed it was his grossly neglected nationalism crying out from somewhere deep in his head.

"I don't know." Tino said. "I mean you have a point and war isn't usually a good thing and the Soviets are pretty scary, but I don't know." He paused again. "Maybe it's not the worst thing."

"What'ver ya say," Berwald responded, but not mockingly. At least, he didn't think so.

"Are you- are you agreeing with me or not commenting or…" God, Tino was usually bad with normal social cues, and this man was even worse.

Berwald shrugged in response, his unfocused gaze looking forward again.

The sun was rapidly setting now, the Finnish winter days bitter and short, quickly plunged into darkness.

He couldn't help but wonder if their revolt would be as short-lived.


	2. Sequence 2: Puomi/Bom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hetalia, and all of its characters, belong to Himaruya Hidekaz. The only thing I own here is the scenario.

**_Sequence 2: Puomi/Bom_ **

* * *

_November 14_ _th_ _, 1939_

_..._

Calling it a command center, or even an office, was a bit of an exaggeration. The heart of the Finnish resistance was little more than a dozen young men wrapped in thrown-together uniforms huddled over one desk and a few quickly made tables set up in Feija's second-story apartment that sat above the small market in town.

Berwald pushed open the rough-hewn wooden door to the busy place for him, accidentally smacking it against the wall, which drew glances Tino certainly didn't want. Tino saw a tiny look pass over Berwald's face- perhaps not really there, but Tino liked to think that he had at least confirmed the statue-man felt something.

Tino stepped in front of him, worming his way carefully around people speaking in rushed, hushed tones over maps. He had no business being near them, really, so he just tried not to step on their heels. When Tino finally cleared the small crowd, he spotted Feija sitting in a corner, smoking a cigarette, writing on something propped up on his knee.

As soon as he heard the heavy footsteps behind Tino, he glanced up, his blond hair sticking out in a few places. "Tino! I haven't seen you in almost a week."

"Yes, it has been that I long, I think. How are things going here? You seem busy."

"Ah, busy indeed. We finished all of the recruitment stuff. The worst part is trying to organize everyone. I mean, a lot of these villages don't even have telephones." He laughed a little bit. Tino wasn't exactly sure what he found funny. "Anyway, you two went out to scout, right" He looked up at the looming Berwald, a small look of something passing over his face. Distaste or mild fear, he wasn't sure.

"Yes, about that…" He trailed off, unsure of how to say it in order to make Feija the least agitated. He had seen him when he was angry, and it wasn't exactly a pretty picture. "Um, well, there was some sort of delivery going on when we got there. Well, we didn't really _go_ there we just sort of watched from the tree line and-"

"The Soviets 're th're." Berwald interrupted. He did have a way of being aggravatingly succinct.

"What?" Feija pushed himself up a bit, his tone quiet. Quiet was never good when it came to Feija.

"They were delivering something there. Crates of things. I don't what they were, we didn't actually go and talk to the people, which I mentioned earlier, didn't I? I mean that would be stupid, to just walk in there and ask them what they were delivering."

"Shit." Feija threw his cigarette underfoot, grinding it into the floor. He turned his head towards a man off to his right and barked a few commands at him. The man responded with a nod and quickly slipped out of the front door.

"Um, Feija?" Tino tried to interrupt him as the commander began to talk to himself, the pen in his hand moving in tandem. "Feija?" His voice faltered, falling quiet under his apprehension.

"Yeah, um, Tino," Feija sounded distant, like his mind was somewhere else. "Thanks for scouting. Just… just go home for now. Did I say thank you?"

Tino nodded, but Feija's eyes were glued upwards, so Berwald must have nodded too.

"Yeah, okay. Thanks again." He immediately squeezed himself in between two older men standing around the nearest table, his voice hushed and urgent, talking about god knows what.

All of it really just made Tino nervous. The tension, the apprehension, the buzz of excitement and fear in the atmosphere that made the floors nearly buckle- it wasn't the right fit for him. Tino had always been a bit of a nervous person. Kind, and oft taken advantage of, he was cautious and didn't tend to reach out to people. All this hustle and bustle was such a disturbance…

Berwald bumped his shoulder lightly, tipping his head towards the door in the same gesture.

Tino nodded in response, not wanting to add more words to the air, and his speaking partner seemed pretty keen on the same idea. He walked towards the door, the snow on his boots still leaving little tracks on the wooden planks beneath him. The two of them left without anyone noticing, stepping out into the blistering wind again, tiny shards of ice colliding with Tino's cheeks.

They continued down the rickety staircase, which Tino had a feeling would collapse soon with the increase in traffic. His mind was suddenly occupied with thoughts laced with anxiety about the safety of Feija and all of the presumably high-ranking revolt leaders. They were completely unnecessary thoughts, but it was something to distract Tino from the reality that war and violence were about as close to their horizon as the next step in front of him. Distraction was bliss, just as ignorance, in a way. He had always been able to see the appeal.

* * *

_November 26_ _th_ _, 1939_

_..._

Tino lightly rapped on the door to Feija's apartment-turned-command center, standing on the still unrepaired rickety staircase. He could see a blot of dark blue out of the corner of his right eye, shifting back and forth on its feet in the snow below. Berwald's rapping probably would have been louder, maybe he should have been the one to knock…

The door flew open suddenly, leaving Tino barely two seconds to scramble back and lean against the railing to save his nose, and most of his face.

"Tino!" Feija met him with a smile, albeit a nervous one, and fake cheer. "'S That Swede here?"

"Berwald? Oh, he's at the bottom of the steps-"

"Ah, good." He was distracted, as always.

Feija nearly ran down the staircase, his boots thudding loudly on the wood and accumulated layers of snow. Tino carefully followed, relying more on the banister than he would have liked to in Feija's wake. He got to the bottom and took an awkward place next to Berwald, feeling more 'at home' next to a stranger than his old friend. Feija had changed so much in the past month alone. The charismatic twenty-something was still there, but his eyes were duller, and his skin a little grayer than what was healthy. His eyes were never without dark shadows under them now. There was no doubt that the impending conflict was taking a toll on him, and covering it up with thinly veiled cheer didn't make it any better.

"Alright, so we're going to go scout out Mainila," He pulled out a map from his coat pocket. "From across the border of course. It's not actually ours. But it's right near that village where you saw the Soviets a couple of weeks ago, so we've been watching it for a while. It's important that we check up every now and then with the forces we've stationed there."

Tino nodded, although Feija didn't even wait for that, already trudging ahead in the snow.

"'e's zealous." Berwald commented quietly as they began to walk.

"That's for sure," Tino responded. "He has to be, doesn't he?"

A noncommittal shrug was his only response.

Just as they passed the very edge of town, Feija stopped, back straight, and began rummaging around in the small shoulder bag he was carrying. Eventually, his hand closed around something and he pulled it out, placing it in Tino's hand- which had been grabbed not a moment before- in one fluid motion.

"That's for you," He said. "Just in a case. You are technically a soldier."

By the time Tino's eyes moved down to gaze at what was in his hand, Feija had already begun to move ahead. But Tino found his feet glued to the ice beneath his feet, an irony if there ever was one. It was a gun. In his palm. It was a handgun, some sort of revolver he guessed, although he'd had no previous experience with weapons. He felt his breath stop in his throat, and desperately tried to get over the lump in his esophagus.

He thought he heard his blood in his ears.

"Ya okay?" There was a small shift in Berwald's face for a second- or at least Tino thought- that looked something like concern. "I's jus' a revolver."

"I-I've never held a gun," He responded, his voice a bit shaky for a reason he couldn't explain. He was holding something in his hands that could kill human beings, and that was a situation that he had never been in before. He had certainly never been in a situation where using something like that was a real possibility before either.

"Safety's on. Nothin' to w'rry about." Berwald moved on, silently urging Tino to follow him.

He closed his hand around the stock hesitantly, and began walking again. His hands shook through his gloves.

He tried to clear his head of the momentary shock, taking in a few breaths of the sharp air and blinking quickly until his eyes had watered up a bit, from the frozen air or fear, he couldn't be sure. Looking ahead, he didn't even think Feija had noticed the quick stop of sorts, as he was barely within his line of sight, weaving in and out of trees ahead of him. The man was non-stop to say the very least, and Tino honestly wondered how he hadn't run himself straight into the ground after two long months of operation. He was relentless, and Tino couldn't recall the last time he'd looked rested.

But, it wasn't his place to judge, or criticize, so he pushed his way through the calf-high snow and followed the receding figure in the near distance.

Tino desperately wanted to break the silence setting in around them, but he didn't dare even trust himself to speak. His throat was thick with terror, his unspoken words stuck there, quaking even though they hadn't left his mouth. So, he settled for the silence. He settled for the crunch of ice underfoot, for the howling wind, for the clacking of branches against one another, for the occasional note let loose from a bird's beak. He settled for that instead. It was easier.

The gun still felt heavy in his hand. It was so foreign from what he was used to holding. The weight was off, the balance was off, everything was off. His fingers gripped it too tightly; his wrist was far too stiff.

He tried his voice. "I'm not meant for this," He said it quietly, and held it closely to the high collar of his coat. His voice was shaking. "I'm not a soldier. I can't kill people. I-"

He stopped as a hand rested lightly on his shoulder. "You'll get us'd ta it," Berwald's Finnish was a little broken, and it almost made Tino laugh. It was endearing in a way. "It didn' feel righ' f'r me at first either."

He nodded, his whole body still tense from the unexpected contact. Berwald's hand awkwardly patted Tino's shoulder once, then twice, and then he continued to walk.

Tino swallowed a lump in his throat, his shoulders still held in a tight line. But, somehow, he did feel more at ease. If a trained soldier hadn't been completely comfortable with a gun at first, he'd be okay eventually, right? It had to pass.

Tino thought back to his life a few years ago, when the War hadn't been announced, when Russia hadn't decided they wanted Finnish territory, when the idea of using a gun had been so ludicrous Tino would have laughed if someone told him to get his hands on one. His life had been peaceful. Not necessarily happy, but it was enough. He had his small cabin, a warm fireplace, his wide circle of acquaintances. Bland as it may have been, anything was better than this, better than the thought of War. War was for scaring children in their primary school history classes. War was for dramatic films that made men shudder and women weep. War was for the hardened Lost Generation who had their dreams and their vacant stares. War was for the best-sellers, for the plays, and for the fantasies of men who had a bone to pick with the world. War wasn't for Tino, and War certainly wasn't for Finland.

That's what War had been. "The War to End All Wars" wasn't aptly named, the propaganda of their neighbor was supposed to just rouse nationalism. Everything since September 1st had held a degree of surreal-ness. Unthinkable things were rapidly approaching all sorts of people, powerful and poor alike. Germany had declared itself an Empire again, the Americans dove in for a profit, Neville Chamberlain avoided War like mice do cats, and Russia wanted its territory back. It had been a two months of one astonishment after another in a world that Tino found to be a little more than skewed.

So, now he was holding a gun, the black metal heavy in his hand. The world seemed to make a little less sense now than it had a few moments ago. He thought that he would have to get used to that feeling.

"We're almos' th're," Berwald spoke from just out of his peripheral.

Tino nodded simply, swallowing the ball in his throat and straightening his spine.

Feija was standing just ahead of them, taking his time to load his gun at a small break in the claustrophobic cluster of trees. "Almost there. That village you guys spotted a few weeks ago is right past that hillcrest in the distance, see it right-"

Feija was stopped in the middle of his sentence by a sharp _crack_ ringing out in the woods around them. They all turned their heads in the same direction, and were met by a tall block of muted green.

The man looked about as startled as Tino felt, the whites of his eyes a little too visible, his thick black eyebrows crooked high up. While Tino stood, as frozen as the air around him, Feija immediately sprung to attention.

"Who are you?" Tino saw Feija's hand tighten around the handle of his revolver, his index finger lighting over the trigger. "Why are you here?"

The man in green looked almost insulted. "I think that you should leave," His accent was thick, Russian, and his lips barely moved under his mustache.

"Leave? Are you- are you kidding me?" Feija's face was slowly reddening, not just from the cold, but from a rising anger that Tino could feel from ten feet back.

The Russian soldier stared at him, his eyes narrowing into a sharpened glare. Tino heard the safety click in his gloved hands.

"You're past our borders,"

"If you expect us to respect your borders, you've had your head in your ground for a month now." There was a venom in his voice that went beyond a military order.

"You won't get Finland back. We won independence once, and we'll guard it a second time." Feija practically spat the words.

There was a bit of comedy in it; Tino thought it was like one of the movies he'd seen. The Villain meets The Hero, they share a tense exchange, The Villain monologues, and then The Hero wins. He felt like this wasn't going to end like in the movies.

"Stop imagining that a ragtag army of villagers could defeat one of the largest armies in the world. We'll have Finland again by the end of the year."

The tension was so tangible, Tino thought he could have snipped it with the pair of scissors in his kitchen drawer at home.

"You fucker," It was quiet, barely audible to Tino, and he had keen ears. Feija was worked up, far more than he should be, even considering the circumstances. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, perhaps it was the stress, but he was dangerous like this: more unpredictable than the weather shifts once night fell.

"Berwald-" He started, taking a step back. His ears were pounding again.

With just a flick of his hand, Feija was suddenly pointing his gun at the Russian's head, and his index finger yanked the trigger back. A tiny click was heard, barely louder than Tino's voice. Feija suddenly froze. The officer was still there, still standing, and all that Feija had in his hands was a useless, jammed revolver.

Tino panicked.

"Berwald," He grabbed his partner's forearm and shook it. "Berwald, shoot him," He shoved the stock of his gun into his hand.

"Can't see, don' gimme a gun. I'll shoot Feija 'nstead."

Tino saw the soldier raise his gun, slowly it seemed. He thought everything felt lethargic all of a sudden. Maybe it was terror-fueled adrenaline or a frightening will to live Tino didn't know he possessed, but he found himself scrambled to click off the safety on his gun. As soon as he felt it give way under his fingers, he gripped the stock like a hand rising from the grave, his knuckles white and tense. He aimed with half a glance, then screwed his eyes shut and shot just as he thought he saw the Russian do the same.

This time, a deafening _bang_ rang out in the clearing, echoing against the trees, and stopping, sitting in the still forest air. Although the gun was small, the unexpected kick-back made Tino slip and come crashing to the ground. His ears were ringing, ringing louder and higher than any church bell he'd ever heard.

"Holy shit- you got 'im." Feija's voice was distant and foggy, and Tino wasn't even sure he was really speaking; his head was so muddled. "Right between the eyes!" Tino thought he heard joy.

He felt Berwald's hand on his arm again, saw his navy blue form bend down and slip an arm around his shoulders, pulling him up onto unsteady feet. He was warm and sturdy despite the cold and Tino's somersaulting stomach and shaking legs.

The respite was short, and Feija was suddenly excitedly pulling him over to the soldier, now flat on his back on the icy forest floor. He couldn't help his eyes from landing on the man's dead body. He'd never seen anyone who had died from unnatural causes.

There was a tiny hole in between his bushy black eyebrows, and broken blood vessels had spread over his left eye and down his cheek like the roots of a plant. The back of the man's head was broken, and fresh carmine leaked out onto the stark snow.

Oh god, the ringing.

"I know you did'n' think you really had a place in the army, but I should try ya as a sniper. You've got a gift for it. Berwald c'n be your spotter." Feija seemed smugly satisfied with himself. _Good job on finding a new warm body with half an ounce of skill, he'll contribute well to the headcount._

There was a tiny hole in between the man's bushy black eyebrows, and broken blood vessels had crept down his cheek.

"I-I just killed a man," His voice was quiet, barely a rasp. He could have cared less about how badly it shook this time.

"Ha! Well, it looks like you beat hell to the punch," Feija fiddled with his revolver, ejecting an un-combusted cartridge onto the ground by the man's corpse. The scarlet-shaded blood had almost reached his feet.

"We should get goin', they'll notice 'e's gone." Berwald was beside him again, his hand coming to rest against his spine, nudging him softly forward.

Feija nodded, marching ahead easily and without hesitation. Berwald started to move, his hand still nudging him from behind. Tino's still found himself unable to stop looking at the man. A man he had killed.

Aside from the gleaming carmine, there was darker blood spilling onto the near-colorless snow. It was the color of a glass of black-red wine. Perhaps this is what Homer had meant by the wine-dark sea.

The capillaries colored his open eye bright.

"Come on Tino," He heard Feija call from farther away. "It's just a soldier. Plenty of men die in war. Get used to it." There wasn't a hint of remorse in his voice. There wasn't a hint of humanity.

Didn't he feel? Killing a man is something you cannot take back.

He knew that Feija wouldn't come back for him. He would leave him behind, as would the war. This wasn't where he belonged, this wasn't where he would make his home. He couldn't. He wouldn't, would he? Killing men wasn't for him, but neither was being the opposition.

He knew that.

"Tino," Berwald still stood next to him, quietly, softly. "We have to keep movin',"

He shook his head, barely discernable.

"We have ta. I know it's hard, but we jus' gotta keep movin'."

Every muscle in his body was pulled so taught it shook. The gun was still in his hand.

It didn't smoke like in the movies.

He felt himself nodding, just as indiscernible as when he shook his head in disagreement.

He forced his feet forward through the snow in pursuit of the non-stop Feija. His partner's hand dropped from his back.

He decided then that Berwald wasn't all hard edges. His uniform was starched and his cheekbones were sharp and Tino knew he carried a knife in his pocket, but his hands were soft and his eyes were warm in their depths.

It was hard, but he kept moving.

* * *

They were almost to the Finnish-Russian border and Feija still hadn't spoken a word to him, to either of them. Was Tino a coward? Perhaps. But Feija was a fool to think that this war, that this world, wasn't full of them. The world was dyed golden with cowardice, but it only made those like him among them blindingly bright. Cowardice was what let the brave win the wars: cowardice on both sides. Maybe it wasn't so bad that he was a coward, at least he still had his morals.

Finally, they reached a tree line, and Feija stopped. About eight hundred meters away was a tiny outcropping of wooden buildings, so rickety it seemed as though they were made of stilts.

"So that's Mainila?" Tino's throat was dry, but his voice was holding up.

Feija grunted in confirmation, not deigning to speak to Tino.

There was a heavy silence for several long moments, the three of them standing against the tree line, the only smears of color in sight. It wasn't exactly a comfortable silence; it was absolutely stifling. He could feel something radiating from Feija- he wanted to say disappointment, but that wasn't quite right. Feija was difficult to figure out, even though he wore everything so openly. It was a strange combination.

Tino's reverie was broken by a sharp intake of breath just to his left side. He turned and saw Berwald squinting hard into the horizon, staring straight into the harsh, setting winter sun. "Ya hear a plane?" It was said to Tino alone, it seemed.

He could. He nodded. It was a tiny buzz, faint and far, but it was there, just like a fly a few feet away. Enough to take notice, not enough to be bothered.

"You can see that?" Tino asked, suddenly questioning his partner's past-exhibited coordination and refusal to fire a gun.

Berwald's response was a quick two shakes of his head. "I's old an' loud. C'n only hear it."

"Feija, do you hear-"

"Get back into the trees," He didn't let Tino finish, immediately barking a command.

The three of them retreated into the shelter of the conifers, the town becoming a settlement of silhouettes before the white sun. He could see it now, a tiny black dot approaching, almost coming into shape, but not quite.

Anyone could tell you it was a plane.

"Russia can't already be invading- they don't have the support," Feija's eyebrows scrunched together. "I'm certain." His tone was absolute.

They stood and watched as the dot became a blot, and then a fuzzy shape, and then wings very clearly took shape. It wasn't a supply plane, but looked like an old war-hardened biplane. The Russian military seemed to be outdated: biplanes hadn't been used in the air forces of the world since the War. If it was Russian, that is.

"What's going on?" Feija was asking himself, that much was clear. It was an open-ended question, one not meant for response. "It's flying too high to land, but too low to just be on a normal route."

As it approached, the propeller became increasingly louder. Tino could hear the old engine knocking from a thousand meters away. As it approached the town, it dropped in altitude, flying just clear of the sky-high pines.

"They're gonna drop somethin'," Berwald said.

"Mainila is a _Russian_ town. Why in the hell would they bomb their own people?" He scoffed, rolling his eyes away from Berwald.

Tino hadn't known Berwald for long, but he got the sense that he knew what he was talking about, that he had good intuition. Today was no different. As soon as the plane swooped just above the town, a tiny bundle dropped from the center, followed by a _boom._

Feija's head snapped up, his eyes wide in disbelief. "They're bombing their own damn town,"

More cracks of sound rang out from the hills. The gunshot in the forest sounded like a bottle top popping off in comparison. Tino had never heard anything so loud in all of his life. His ears weren't just ringing this time, they were screaming. He tried in vain to cover them, but his thick gloves did nothing to mute the sounds.

He thought he heard seven explosions in total, but he couldn't be sure. It was all just a massive rise of noise in his frantic head.

"Who the hell would kill their people? Their own _citizens_?" Feija was absolutely dumbstruck, which was a rare occurrence.

They watched the shaky buildings stoke the orange heat towards the sky, finally reaching their inevitable collapses as the fire consumed them. Black smoke filled the sky, painting a backdrop for the flames.

Tino looked on, wide-eyed, with a strange sort of fascination. He found it beautiful, in a way. The hot light danced in the smoke-dyed air. It _danced_.

War was supposed to be ugly, wasn't it? It was supposed to be full of images like the Russian soldier Tino had shot not a kilometer away. It was supposed to be disgusting and morally repugnant, which it was. But was Tino supposed to be struck by the way the fire burned the town to the ground? It didn't sound right, and it sure as hell didn't feel right.

They watched the town burn. The fire took an eternity to die, leaving behind gray ashes that fell with the snow, one indiscernible from the other. The air was still, and the smoke settled, heavy, over what remained: a black cloud had fallen from the heavens and had chosen to land atop the hill.

Had there been people? Tino had only heard the cracking of the wood as it splintered and burned. It might have been that that was all that he had wanted to hear, that he had subconsciously blocked the rest, chalked it up to the ringing. It seemed that he would never know.

"I want you two to go back to town and send some relief, see if anything's salvageable." Feija said, his voice dry and monotonous.

Tino nodded, not speaking. The atmosphere wasn't right for words.

When had the plane left? Did it turn back to Russia, or did it continue to their country? He hadn't noticed. As soon as the first bomb rang out, he had noticed nothing of importance. A blur of bright light and dark smoke, all of it.

Berwald started ahead first, leaving Tino to play catch-up a few steps behind. When he had finally reached his side again, neither of them said anything until Feija was long out of earshot and out of view.

"Ya okay?" Berwald tossed a glance over at Tino as he said it.

Tino nodded, but then found himself pausing.

"Ya sure?" Berwald said, a hint of doubt in his voice.

Tino took another pause, staring at the birch boughs in front of him instead of answering the question. Then, he shook his head. "Have you killed anyone before?"

Berwald didn't respond for a dozen steps or so. When he finally did, it was a simple hum of negation.

"Well, I guess I beat you to that then," Tino said. He had meant to put humor into that sentence, he really had, but all he heard coming from his mouth was a dry despair. "Ha, who's the real soldier now?"

Berwald released a puff of air. A scoff or a laugh maybe, Tino couldn't tell. It wasn't like that mattered anyway. Opinion was always relative. Who the hell cared if they could all die tomorrow?

Tino had never been much of a cynic. He could even go so far as to call himself an optimist. But, what had happened in the span of the last hour was posing a serious challenge to the way that he viewed the world. Just like in that Walt Whitman poem, he was faced with two paths: down one lay a sunlight-bleached hope that Tino knew had little possibility of existing, yet he still acknowledged anyway, and down another lay a painfully harsh and painfully real painting of the world now that war was descending upon it. One was the new spring and one was the dead of winter, and its war.

He didn't want to think about it, didn't want to acknowledge that he had to choose either. Maybe taking your time at the crossroads isn't always so bad.

"What do you think of this war?"

"Still stupid ta me,"

"I think I'm starting to get what you mean," He said. "By it being stupid. I shot a man because he had a problem with where our border is. That's pretty stupid."

"Mm-hmm," Berwald replied with a hum again.

They fell quiet, and stayed that way until they reached civilization again

* * *

Now the creaking and shaking of the staircase was really starting to _bother_ Tino. He'd been walking up and down it for weeks, hearing those same distressing noises from the aging, rotting wood, but it had been only a minor nuisance. Now, it really made him upset. Maybe he was suddenly upset about it because he had just killed a man in the snow and seen a village burn to a wooden crisp, and everything blared in his ears, or maybe he had just finally reached a point.

He pushed open the door and was confronted with the same bustling scene as usual. It seemed that they had run out of firewood, as the room was practically just as cold as the outside was, despite the number of warm bodies inside of it. That didn't bother him much, but he found himself, once again, worrying about the resistance fighters working in it.

He tried to stop a few of the officers to ask who was in charge while Feija was gone, but half-muttered ums and 'excuse me's weren't enough to gain their attention. The normal Tino was back again, awkward and quiet and worrying about the temperature of the room and not wanting to tell whoever was in charge that the Russians had just bombed their own town.

Berwald had been standing behind him the whole time, watching his failed attempts to garner attention. He finally grabbed the arm of the nearest man and held fast, guiding him in Tino's direction. The man seemed too suddenly submissive to complain.

"Um, who's in charge here when Feija's gone?" Tino asked.

"Yrja. He's in the back." The man pointed towards a door in the left-hand corner of the main room. "But he's very busy, so do you need him right now or-?"

"It's important," Tino interrupted. Tino never interrupted anyone. That could be attributed to his overwhelming day, right?

He and Berwald walked toward the closed door and he knocked quietly, not wanting to startle this Yrja.

There wasn't a response, so Berwald nudged the door open with his foot for him, exposing Tino to the room, along with the man inside of it.

The room itself was probably a small extra room that was partitioned off in the apartment just because it _could_ be partitioned off. It was tiny, maybe three by two meters by a liberal measurement. It contained a desk, a chair, stacks of files, and one very disgruntled-looking man.

The man himself had a heaviness about him. He filled the room and deprived Tino of the oxygen the second he met his gaze, and not in a good way. Tino felt overwhelmed again, the weight of the day following the weight of the man's look. His hair was dark, curly and cropped short to his skull. His nose was broad and his jaw was defined. Combined with the way his eyebrows turned down, he looked far from approachable.

Not knowing what to say, and feeling some emotion leaking inside of him, Tino found himself blurting out, "You need to fix the damn staircase. It'll collapse if you don't."

Why did he say that? The second it left his mouth, he immediately regretted it. It wasn't a usual scene to see a tiny man barge in unannounced and without permission into your office and snap at you about staircases that weren't technically yours.

He didn't seem to like it, either. "Who are you?" His voice was deep, laced heavy with an accent that Tino couldn't place. "What do you want from me? You couldn't have just come in here to yell at me about the stairs," There was a barely-veiled anger there, too.

"Um, I… I didn't mean to say that. I don't know why I said that, I'm sorry I just- I've seen a lot of things today."

"Alright. That's great. What did you see? A reindeer?" The anger really wasn't veiled now.

"No, I-"

" _Two_ reindeer?" The stair comment must have really rubbed him the wrong way. What was the provocation? Had the man built the thing? Tino really couldn't understand the anger.

"Oi," Berwald spoke, his voice almost as deep as Yrja's, but louder, and that made a difference. "Jus' list'n to 'im."

Yrja lowered his pointed gaze from Berwald's scowling face with an incredible amount of reluctance to Tino's, which held significantly more anxiety than before.

"We went with- Feija asked us to come and scout Mainila with him. To- to check on guards we have stationed around there, I think."

"Okay," Yrja just felt the need to interrupt him.

"When we got there, things were alright for a minute but then, um… Russia dropped shells,"

"On you?" That seemed to pique his interest a little bit, but the annoyance was still there.

"No. On Mainila,"

"So," Yrja pushed himself up and out of his chair, leaning on the desk with his arms outstretched. "You mean to tell me the Russians bombed their own damn village? That is what you came here to tell me?"

"Yes, I- I don't see why you're questioning that. Berwald was there too, and you can ask Feija when he gets back but he sent us to-"

"To what? Stammer out half of a report? I'm disappointed in him," He scoffed, turning his head to stare at the right-hand wall. Forget the military, hostility must have been the man's trade.

"Send relief," Berwald said.

Tino hadn't heard the man speak a lot in their few short weeks around each other, but there was something in his voice that was, how do you say, threatening. His words were short, like usual, but his tone was too. But it was barely there- you had to pay attention to hear it.

"Tha's it. S'nd relief,"

Yrja looked up at Berwald, and Tino could feel the tension. Yrja didn't like Tino, and he didn't seem to like Berwald, and Berwald certainly didn't like Yrja.

"Also, um, I think that I should note: I shot a Russian officer," That caught Yrja's angry attention span. "And Feija thinks it's worthwhile to make me a sniper. I don't know why, I mean I've never really used a gun before and-"

"A sniper? Ha!" He shot a sideways glare back at Tino. "Your hands are shaking like a little girl's right now. Give me a break,"

There was a chaotic silence for a few seconds as both parties shared tense looks.

"Relief," Berwald stated, for what would be the final time, before lightly taking hold of Tino's upper arm and guiding him out of the office. He slammed the door behind them.

Tino just walked right out of Feija's apartment. He walked down the screaming stairs, with Berwald on his heals. He turned toward the farther edge of town, where the hills started to rise. He continued to walk for ten minutes until he saw his house in the foreground.

He felt for his keys in his pocket, and felt the gun instead. It made him sick, just feeling the barrel sticking out in his coat. His stomach turned and his head ached as he remembered the man he shot. In the midst of nausea rising fast inside of him, he realized that Berwald was still following him.

As he finally fished the worn bronze-colored key from his pocket, he stopped to look back at Berwald. "I thought you were boarded somewhere in town?"

"Runnin' out o' money," Berwald explain. "Can' stay there for m'nths."

Tino nodded, understanding. "Well, you can stay with me I guess. You'll have to sleep on the couch for now, which might actually be a little small for you, but I won't charge you for it."

Berwald nodded. "Thanks,"

Tino had judged Berwald as a responsible, quiet, albeit frightening-looking, man in the short time he had known him. He didn't make his presence too large, and he seemed to take of himself well. He wouldn't be a terrible roommate, Tino decided. If nothing else, he would have someone to help him with the firewood and the cooking. That wasn't too bad.

So they walked up to Tino's house, perched on the crest of another snow-covered hill. He lived in relative isolation- town was a five or ten minute walk away, depending on the snowfall, but his nearest neighbor was barely visible about three hundred meters away. It was nice because he was rarely bothered, and it discouraged company since it was a ways out on foot. It was a simple house, the wooden siding stained a dark brown, the window trim painted a peeling white.

The doorknob had accumulated some ice despite the front door being housed underneath a small eave. Tino stabbed at it with the key a few times for a good measure, and finally fit it into the locking mechanism. He felt it click, heard it click, and he pushed open the old door. It was a barely-finished wood, and the hinges creaked no matter how much oil he put on them.

As soon as Berwald had fit his frame through the door, Tino quickly closed it so the cold wouldn't creep in more than it needed to. The two were left standing in one of only three rooms in the tiny house. A black furnace was nestled in the left-hand corner, the chimney roughly patched through the ceiling. A kitchen stood next to it, housing barely more than a stove, a small refrigerator, and a sink. A couch, two small chairs, and a plain coffee table took up the rest of the central room of the house.

"Well, that's it," Tino gestured to the room by sweeping his hand around the tiny interior. "The bathroom is through there," He pointed to a door on the right-side wall.

Berwald nodded, looking around slowly. "'s nice," He said.

Tino didn't exactly respond, just letting Berwald continue to look around.

The air was stiff, save for a slight draft that slipped in through a tiny crack in the front windowsill.

Tino left Berwald standing in the living room, slipping into the bathroom, and closing the door behind him. He felt the panic rising fast, his throat clawing shut, his hands quaking. The room felt so much smaller than before, the walls closer, the ceilings closer, the panic closer. God, everything felt closer.

He leaned on the white porcelain sink, head thrown down, eyes screwed shut. He stayed like that for a time, staring at the gray behind his eyelids. His face ached and his neck grew stiff from the tension. He tipped his head up, finally opening his eyes to confront himself in the mirror. His face was ruddy, spotted with inflamed red. His eyes were glass indigo marbles, wet and leaking fear he couldn't hold in.

His shoulders were thrown up, held in a tight line. They shook slightly from the weight of his new responsibilities. _You've got a gift for it_ , Feija had said.

A gift.

He shoulders suddenly grew slack, his face clean of expression, the corners of his mouth tugging down heavily. This would be a mantel he had to hold. He had managed to hold himself for all of these years, alone and scraping by. Why not add another title to the burden?

His blood hammered in his ears, his lungs were still frantic, but he collected himself like he always did and softly opened the bathroom door.

Berwald had taken a seat on the couch, and was looking out of the first of the front windows, the one with the draft, onto the snow-clad hills.

"Excuse me, Berwald, but I need to go out. Will you be okay here?" His voice was soft, but his home was small, and sound need not carry far.

Berwald nodded, eyes still squinting back at him. His thick blond hair was shoved every-which-way from the wind, tousled from the journey out to Tino's home, and un-tidied since.

"Okay, good," He paused, gathering his gloves from his coat pockets. "I should be back in a few hours at the very most."

Berwald nodded again in affirmation. He had since taken off his heavy overcoat, revealing a black dress shirt and carefully knotted tie. Until actual combat started, it seemed that the Swedes would be wearing the more formal version of their uniform.

Tino pulled the top button of his coat through the hole, and greeted the frozen world through the front door. His feet were not exactly sure where he was supposed to be headed, but he knew that his destination lay somewhere on the opposite end of town.

The snow was falling now, sticking to his eyelashes and leaving clouds of white in his eyes. The air was still sharp, biting at any bits of exposed skin on his face, making him regret his choice to leave the house. No matter. His legs were determined on carrying out his original goal.

He had decided to head to a small gun supply held by the local resistance forces, perched at the very end of the stretch of buildings that was the town. If he was going to be a sniper, he might as well face every god-awful fear here and now and learn how to use a rifle. It wasn't a prospect that pleased him. After his limited experience with guns today, he didn't find the idea of firearms all that appealing but, as he had said to himself earlier, it was just something else to carry with him.

"It will be fine," He said to himself, softly, as if he were amongst a crowd of people instead of by himself in a frozen expanse of Finland. His voice was steadier now, more sure of what he needed to do.

After a fifteen-minute walk, a small, low-roofed building came into the view at the end of a row of dismal buildings, the silhouette heavy from the falling snow. It was nothing to write home about: a simple dark-stained wooden building, it was squat and unassuming and if Tino hadn't known what he was looking for, he would have never found it. It seemed desolate and absent of all life. The front door was abandoned, and the windows did not cast off even the slightest light. It seemed still and lifeless in its existence, ignored and forgotten amongst the isolation and misery of the surrounding buildings.

Tino's feet carried him to the base of the three crooked steps up to the door, but his mind froze, fighting desperately against where his limbs were already determined to go. His toe dug into the snow with his boot at he idled by the entrance, trying to find a million excuses so he would not have to step past the door jam. He found his million excuses, but he knew that he would need a million more to justify backing out of this war. This wasn't the next World War he would be a soldier in; it was a fight for his homeland, and he felt a thousand and one memories of Independence Day parades flicker through his head like a reel of film. He saw the white and stark blue banners flittering high above the restless, cheering crowds in national costume; he heard the resounding thuds of soldiers' boots on the ground as they marched down the snow-packed street running through the center of town; he heard children's laughter as they chased each other, weaving in and out of adults' legs.

He thinks: this is what is at stake.

He ignores the screaming fear in his mind and lights onto the first step. The next two feel substantially easier, as he can morally justify making them. _This is the right thing, Tino_ , he assures himself as the doorknob comes within reach. He repeats it, chants it, as though a mantra of a salvation-starved man.

Finally, he feels the curved metal give in to a push of his hand, and he hears the rough-hewn wood make an ugly scraping sounds against the only slight-smoother planking of the porch floor. There was no turning away now- he has already stepped across the threshold.

It does not surprise Tino that no one is there. The days have grown short from the coming winter, and the sunlight has already dipped below the jagged tree line. He is alone in the small room, suddenly cavernous, faced with a table of hastily-laid-out arms and ammunition. He doesn't know where to begin. There is a pile of pistols, a row of rifles, stacks of ammunition, and he still feels his stomach churn from seeing the dully glinting bronze of the bullets. He swallows his apprehension yet again, and slips off a work-worn tan glove to grasp a few of the metal points. He has never really had time to inspect neither bullets nor guns, and he figures that now would be a good time to start.

He turns over the bullets in his hand, clanking together in his palm. They're funny little things, he thinks; just a bland tube topped off with a long point. In his fingers, they seem innocuous, almost, but he is then reminded of the fact that a small metal pellet was responsible for tearing open a man's skull earlier in the day. It's a strange thought really: something so harmless while still can kill an infinite number of people if shot out of a tube fast enough. It seemed like an odd concept, at least to him.

The gun was next. Its wood- once polished to shine, now only faintly reflecting- was a simple dark brown. The metal of the barrel and the trigger and whatever else the other things on the gun were called were made of a simple, nicked, scratched pewter-colored metal. Again, the instrument itself looked far from outstanding. It was worn, and as he turned it over in his hands, it didn't radiate an ominous aura as he thought it would have. It was just a block of carved wood with a metal tube down the center and a flint inside. It seemed so remarkably unremarkable there, in the dim-lit building, held in the hands of a man who had no idea what he was doing.

And yet...

After a bit of examining, Tino figured out how to load the thing, fumbling with the metal components for a moment before slipping a pointed bullet into the chamber- at least he thinks that's what it's called. He can see the sort of practice course set up behind the shack, and decides to try his luck, hoping and not hoping at the same time that he replicates his results from that afternoon.

When he closes the back door, he is again faced with the fact that he has no idea what he's doing. Does he stand? Sit? Lie on the ground? How is he supposed to fire it? He knows that you can fire from any position with a handgun, but Tino had no clue as to what he's supposed to do with the long, awkward thing. He recalls that in the movies, snipers were situated on the top of buildings, like crows or harbingers of death or both, lying low so they could shoot their targets unseen.

So, just like in the movies, he lies down on the snow, resting the butt of the gun on his shoulder. He is immediately confronted with the sight- a simple iron cross inside of a circle, and finds the rest of the process rather easy to figure out. He closes an eye and points at whatever he wants to shoot at with the sight. He then fumbles with the safety- a little lever- until it clicks off, and finds himself stuck. Not because he doesn't know how to fire it, but because that same anxiety, that same stomach-wrenching guilt, crashes into him, and his index finger freezes.

He was not shooting anything real. He was firing at a wooden board with red circles hastily painted around the center. But still, that fear suddenly held him at arms. It grabbed at his throat, his hands, every muscle in his body, and made them stiff and unmoving and unyielding. Tino desperately tried to swallow all of it and get a hold of himself. _This is a war, Tino_. _There isn't any time to freeze up at a practice range._

He took a breath and closed his eyes, finding solace in the blink of darkness and stillness. Despite the anxiety still remaining, he focused his open eye, and carefully squeezed the trigger.

The jolt from the rifle was unexpected to him. It slammed into his shoulder, threatening to knock him off-balance, but his feet were dug so far into the snow out of nervousness that it didn't jostle him too badly. But, he could already feel the ache emerge in his scapula. After the shock of the kickback wore off, Tino looked out at the little wooden board he had been firing at. He did not expect much: perhaps a nicked edge, if he was lucky.

Instead, he was met with the same uncanny marksmanship as earlier. Right in the center circle, a tad bit to the left. He blinked a few time, not quite believing his own eyes. Was Feija right? Did he really have a knack for this? Tino found himself unwilling to believe it. He had nursed wild rabbits back from injury as a child; he helped older members of the town shovel the snow out of their drives; he adored small dogs more than anyone he knew; he had a fondness for hot chocolate with cinnamon. A person like that had no business being a sniper, right? They sounded like two completely different people. A gentle, anxiety-ridden man who barely cleared 170 cm versus someone who made holes appear in people's heads. That couldn't be two sides of the same coin.

That was what Tino told himself as he continued to shoot at the wooden targets. _This isn't who I am, this isn't what I'm suited for._ Over and over again he said it, one repetition for every time he punctured the boards exactly where he was aiming. As he felt the jarring pain in his shoulder ache on, and saw the light fall beneath the horizon, he began to wonder who he really was then, if he was neither a killer nor a gentle civilian.

But that thought, too, eventually became as numb as a frost-chilled fingers as he lay on the white-packed ground, beginning to accept his new reality.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, some quick notes.
> 
> 1) I know now that the Swedish Volunteer Corps didn't arrive in Finland until February, and 2) I also know that Mainila was shelled, not bombed, but the plane visual was so much more dramatic, so I decided to fudge that a bit since it doesn't affect the storyline either way.
> 
> I apologize for the REALLY late update. Junior year is kicking my ass, but I've recently had a little more time to work on this.
> 
> I appreciate any reviews and criticism from you guys!


	3. Sequence 3: Kapina/Uppror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, a bit of preamble: I know absolutely nothing about planes. I did do some light research, but since I didn’t know what exactly to reference, my descriptions are tangential at best. 
> 
> Hetalia, and all of its characters, belong to Himaruya Hidekaz. The only thing I own here is the scenario.

 

**Sequence 3: Kapina/Uppror**

* * *

 

_November 26 th, 1939_

 ...

   The air was heavy. First, it was because of building itself.- stone walls, low ceilings, and doors jammed as tightly closed as possible in a vain attempt to keep out the creeping cold- created a sort of oven in the Russian wilderness, without any benefits of the heat itself. All that they had was the thick, un-breathing air inside a box with an ill-fitting lid.

   Second, it was because of the smoke.

   A cigarette hung loosely from the lips of a young man, bundled in khaki and grey and a fiery red star, ash falling on top of scuffed black military boots. The drags that he took only permeated the air with gray soup that made the oxygen unbearably dense. He did not seem to mind; at least not any more. He had been stationed at this outpost for weeks now. The smoke was almost comforting to him after reaching such a point. It was a constant in his life, which rarely involved staying in one place for too terribly long, considering the vastness of Russia’ terrain. As a consequence, he made no move to swat it away from himself, instead letting it settle in his clothing and his shining hair. It did not inhibit his ability to scrawl loopy Cyrillic on a pad in front of him, so he did nothing.

   The air cleared for a moment, the room breathed for a moment, as the door was slivered open for half of a second, and another figure slipped in. She coughed quietly, stifled in her coat, and found her nose wrinkled up almost to her eyes.

“You really need to cut that nasty habit of yours, Ivan,” She said, pulling out a chair to sit across from him. The metal legs scraped unceremoniously against the concrete. “You know some doctors are saying that it’ll kill you someday.”

   Ivan shrugged, not even raising his eyes to meet hers. “Want a drag?” He offered the burning thing to her.

   She recoiled in disgust, and shooed it away. “The ventilation is bad enough in here anyway, Ivan. Do you really need to make it worse?”

“Everyone smokes, Nika,” He retorted, his pen still not stopping its precise movements.

“So what? Everyone in Europe is going after Poland. That doesn’t make it worth anyone’s while.”

“I fail to see your point,”

She sighed. She rarely found herself gaining any ground with Ivan.

“Sir, I have orders,” She was finally met with oddly violet eyes. “From Afanas.”

“Go on,” Ivan carefully placed his pen on the metal table.

“We’re to bomb the Finnish border.” She continued.

   Ivan looked somewhat taken aback. “Why? I thought there were people talking with the Finns.”

“Well, that is a truth. But you know we never really intended to talk, of course.”

   Ivan smiled softly to himself. “Ha, how foolish of me to assume otherwise,” A small laugh. “Well, I’ll give you the go ahead.” He said. “Can I come with you? I’m tired of being pent up in this room.”

“Are you asking as a commanding officer, or as a comrade?”

“Either one will do,” He responded. “But you know that it’s always fun to see the first shot. Would you really deprive me of that, Nika?”

“Fine. But there isn’t a lot of room in those planes, you know.”

“That doesn’t matter,” There it was, that smile. It reached his eyes, and yet it didn’t. It made Nika uneasy, truth be told.

“Put out the damn cigarette or I’m not letting you near that airfield,” She shot him a sideways glare. “You may be my commanding officer, but they’re _my_ planes.”

   He gave her a look of reluctant confirmation, and then the chairs were screeching again as they stood up to depart.

   The shift in air quality between the cement box and the outside world was a sudden one, and the amount of fresh frozen air that flooded Ivan’s nose was almost dizzying. He tipped his military cap further down on his forehead and drew his cream scarf taut against his throat to protect from the encroaching cold. The wind blew, but not in force, and the snow had been holding off for a few hours longer than expected. It was good flying weather.

   Other than the gray box shrinking behind them, there were only a few wiry defensive towers and the small fleet encircled by barbed wire. A lot of barbed wire. The square of thin tarmac and ice-crunched ground was covered by rows and rows of planes. All of them were old biplanes that hadn’t been new since just before the first World War. As Nika led Ivan through the rows and the columns, he noticed the tight canvas of the wings curling and fraying at the edges, peeling away from their frames after nearly decades in the turbulence-filled air of war.

“You would have thought our government would have given you new planes by now,” He remarked, gesturing to a particular plane with a particularly large tear in the underside of its left wing.

   This seemingly innocuous comment caused Nika to burst out in near-hysterics. Ivan laughed softly along with her, but found himself unable to understand the reason behind it.

   She was practically doubled over now, her hands on her knees, her eyes clenched shut, and her mouth open wide with laughter. “Ivan-“ She started, still struggling to eliminate the obscene giggling from her voice. “Oh you’re such a fool sometimes.”

“How so, Nika? Do tell.”

“Oh, come now,” She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye- whether from laughter or the cold he couldn’t tell. “New planes? Be realistic Ivan,”

“It’s not exactly idealistic to have our military up-to-date,”

“It is when it’s the Russian military. You undoubtedly understand our numbers and the length of our borders,” She said simply. “Ha! It worries me that there are people like you in higher command. You’re lucky you didn’t get taken by the purges! So oblivious.”

   Ivan shot a glare her way from the corner of his eye, narrowing the lids so that the color barely peeked through his eyelashes. But then it was gone and that smile was back. If someone were to take it from Ivan’s lips and place it on anyone else’s, it would not have been so unsettling. It would have caused crow’s feet to dance their way to the corners of their eyes, it would have been sincere. But Ivan’s face remained as smooth as refined plaster, the smile changing nothing. Ever since meeting him all those years ago during his first assignment, Nika had been wondering whether or not he actually processed or even felt emotion at all. Everything seemed like a just too-shiny veneer. The teeth a little too straight, a little too white. His face a little too calm.

   Out there, in the frozen air, what of his hair that peeked out of his cap gleamed like platinum, matching the tight row of medals hanging on his jacket, carnelian-ribboned and glinting. He seemed almost ethereal in the snow-grayed light. It was unnerving.

   At long last, they stopped trudging through the thick snow as they reached Nika’s plane. There were few ways to describe it other than rickety. The spindles between the two wings seemed shaky at best, and downright disastrous at worse. The paint was faded, the bright red star at the tale more dull than burning. Ivan felt his face tighten in a mix of disapproval and disappointment at the sight.

“Stop glaring at ‘er and just get in the plane,” Nika snapped at him, studying his face.

   Ivan put his hands up defensively, leaning back into the gesture. He pulled at his scarf again, fiddling with the edging for all but a moment, before grabbing onto the hand-holds with his leather gloves.

   The plane itself was rather cramped. The original design had been for two people, but barely. Only in the direst of scenarios. There was no gunner meant to be with the plane at all times, only the pilot, acting at both the helm and the trigger. It was an arduous and respectable job, one Ivan knew he personally would not be suited for. He was used to the indirect stress officers faced: playing with people’s lives and troop movements and bombing raids, but placing his own life in danger would be a fatal moment for him. He much preferred standing in dim-lit rooms, towering over maps and figurines, with the smell of cigarette smoke heavy in the air.

   The seat he found himself in was hard leather, long faded from use, sandwiched between Nika’s and the hard edge of the well they sat in. Aside from being tight, it truly wasn’t that bad, only mildly uncomfortable. He could see himself getting used to it after spending hours, days in the sky as Nika had.

“Get ready,” Nika said, flipping switched and pressing tiny, colored buttons in the seat in front of him. “Takeoff’s always rough.”

   The last time Ivan had been in a plane, it hadn’t been so bad. The turbulence had been impressive, but passable nonetheless. He’d heard stories of wildly bumpy wind currents when the biplanes travelled to their normal altitude, far above, where they could easily spot and encroach on enemy planes. He pulled his cap further down onto his ears.

   The plane rumbled to life with a start. It jolted forward, and Nika slowly began to steer it down towards the main strip of tarmac. In a ways, it was almost like a car, but they were far higher off of the ground, considerably tilted, and the propeller whirred on loudly into the afternoon air.

   Finally, the engine pushed their speed to a steady clip, and the whole wooden frame shuddered as it briefly lighted off of the ground, then slammed back down. To call it a bit of a bumpy takeoff was an understatement, in Ivan’s view. The frame rocked side to side, in perpetual motion as it finally managed to spend more time in the air then on the tarmac.

   The leather of his gloves creaked as his hands gripped onto the wooden curves of the seat, quietly but desperately trying to prevent himself from being jostled. The wind was starting to pick up, and it blistered his cheeks as it passed over his face and tousled the tips of his hair.

“Nika, I hope that you can tell me we’ll be getting off the ground soon,” He had to yell even though she was no more than an arm’s length in front of him.

“We are off the ground. Sort of, at least.” The shrill of her voice made it hard to distinguish in the whistling wind.

“I don’t believe this counts as being off of the ground,” His comment was punctuated with another crashing contact with the ground.

“Sure it does,” She yelled back, trying to peak over her shoulder at him.

   He sucked his teeth in response, tightening his grip on the sides of his seat compartment.

   After what seemed like an eternity, although it was probably about another minute and a half, the plane finally lifted off of the ground and stayed in the air this time, barely clearing the whirls of barbed wire garland looping over the fence. As they ascended, the ride became a bit smoother, and Ivan found the leather less taught over his knuckles.

   They passed over the snowy Russian expanse in relative quiet, the wind whipping past them as they moved through the air. Ivan turned his attention outward and saw the mounds of snow-clad evergreens dotting the landscape below, boughs occasionally broken free from their icy restraints, the deep greens emerging in stark contrast with their surroundings. The whole landscape was mostly stagnant with few signs of life. It seemed as though Ivan and Nika’s plane was the only thing that had laid eyes on the empty snow. The engine knocked and hummed low, being the only accompaniment to the high-pitched wind.

   Nika tossed another glance over her shoulder, meeting his eyes for a second. “It’s not too far off. You’ve probably visited there. Tiny village, not much.”

   He nodded, hoping she knew that her description matched about five separate villages on the Finnish border near them. He guessed it didn’t really matter in the long run. He was there to see the first shots of what was likely to be a war, and that was what was important.

   He felt Nika lower their altitude a bit, so close to the ground, he could have sworn he was able to touch the treetops if he leaned far enough out. She held their course steady, not dipping any further for a landing, but far too low for anything other than a bombing. It was a bit of an ostentatious move, in his view, but it was the highest of High Command’s decision, and he wasn’t nearly high up enough on the Russian military ladder to have any say. Someday, he knew. Someday, but not yet. He would have to be patient. Patience was a virtue he excelled in.

   There was no need for him to wait now, however, as he finally saw a collection of scraggly buildings on a hillcrest in the distance. As it grew closer, he saw Nika fiddling with buttons and switches in the cockpit, setting things in motion for the drop.

“Ready, Ivan?” She called back.

“Of course,” He responded, his lips tugging a bit. “It’s always fun seeing first blood.”

   Finally, the village was right below them, and Ivan heard the bomb release, then ignite as they passed to the other side of the village. He heard Nika cheer in front of him, made happy by the precise blow. He twisted his back in the tiny seat to see as much as he could of the explosion.

   The flames began immediately, starting from low on the ground, but crawling up beams fast, curling around roofs soon after. It started a deep orange, then brightened tongues of yellow appeared, casting the snow golden. He could see black woodsmoke rise from the first-hit area, the flames casting shadows onto the stuff like a projector would on a screen. Sparks erupted as new buildings were eaten alive by the blaze, and soon half of the village was cast in fire.

   Red, red, red.

   Nika made a lazy u-turn in the air, taking on altitude as she did so, wanting to stay out of the way of the rising smoke. As they passed the soon-to-be-wreckage again, Ivan could smell the burning cellulite of the wood and the melting of rubber contained somewhere in some building. Acrid, perhaps, but nothing could have smelled better to him in that moment.

   He felt his grin widen and his eyebrows lift in giddiness unique to warfare. His vision felt red.

“This will be a fun war, no?” He said entirely to himself, under his breath, and relished.

* * *

  _November 27 th, 1939_

 ...

   Tino wasn’t one for drinking, and the amount of times he had found himself in the tavern in recent weeks was an odd departure from his typical behavior. Well, he guessed that the looming possibility of war was a bit of an atypical scenario. The tavern meetings tended to be impassioned things, full of patriotism and ambitious goals of quashing the Russian military, but there was something different this time.

   The whole building was bursting with an angry, unnerving energy he had never seen before from his compatriots, even on the night the rebellion officially began to organize. It felt… enclosing, pressing even. As soon as his feet passed through the threshold, he was assaulted with a wave of fury and bloodlust. Although Mainila wasn't theirs, wasn’t even within their borders, the Finns were livid. It took Russia’s behavior to an entirely new level of offense. At least this was the way that he thought Feija and Yrjä would explain it.

   The seething crowd was there waiting for just those two people. A speech was imminent, and Feija had sent that he would be saying words that evening. After Tino and Berwald’s tense encounter with Yrjä, and Feija’s return, the entire command knew the details of the Mainila bombing, and he remembered from the flits of conversation after the report had been concluded that they seemed far from content. They were not angry about it. On the contrary, they seemed more reserved or indifferent, at the least. As far as he could tell, Feija’s feelings would not match those of the room, and Tino was anxiously waiting to see how all of it would play out.

   His thoughts were consumed by the events of the day before. The Russian soldier still occupied the forefront of his mind, and he found himself shivering as though he were still standing outside. His right shoulder ached sharply from the hours of sustained rifle practice he’d desperately put himself through yesterday to numb the ringing in his ears. His mind, unfamiliar to the overload of stress, had started to mute itself, a reality for which he was thankful.

   Too intently listening to the static and frantic thoughts in his head, he missed a call to him, and then suddenly found his shoulder very lightly jostled. He snapped out of his reverie to be confronted with Berwald, his eyebrows still scrunched together and eyelids squinted. He looked like he was expecting a response from Tino.

“Sorry, what?” He said, not quite meeting the taller man’s gaze.

“Ya okay?” He said, his Finnish still halting.

“Oh, yeah,” He responded, trying to brush it off. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

   Berwald nodded, but looked at him for a few moments afterwards, as if he wanted to say something more. He decided not to push, which Tino was thankful for, but he knew that the conversation might resume later that evening, when they had the quiet fifteen-minute span to walk back to their now-shared home.

     When he came back home last night, Berwald had been dozing on the sofa, legs curled up and head draped over the right arm. His coat was still neatly folded on the table, and his gloves still on his fingers. Tino had remembered giving him a blanket from his closet, trying to tiptoe as to not be loud enough to wake him. Unfortunately, he had learned Berwald was a light sleeper, and he didn’t stay asleep for long. As soon as he had closed the door, Berwald had started to stir.

   His eyes were clouded, slightly disoriented, as he awoke. Tino remembered him blinking a couple of times before sitting up and looking at him, then saying words he had never heard before. Berwald had kept staring at him, not realizing that Tino could not speak a single word of Swedish. A moment later, his eyes widened a fraction before he switched back to Finnish, apologizing quickly. 

   It had been almost endearing, but the whole situation was strange. He hadn’t had anyone in his home overnight since his parents had passed years ago, and it was odder still to wake up that morning to his sofa barely containing a very tall man who still wore a military uniform. Berwald had quickly said that his belongings were currently with a fellow soldier in town, and he would retrieve them later that day, which explained the oddity, but didn’t remove the sheer interest involved in waking up in full military garb.

   Since that morning, Tino had tagged along with Berwald to first retrieve his belongings, then make a formal report to the small circle of commanding officers, among other things. Now they stood in the tavern, awaiting Feija’s anticipated arrival. The whole day had seemed to go against the way his normally flowed, albeit subdued. He hadn’t quite developed an opinion as to how he felt about it, but he had yet to adjust to having another person with him on such a consistent basis.

   They still stood together now, Berwald appearing to Tino as more of an anchor than he would have liked to admit. In the frenzied atmosphere, Berwald was stoic and quiet and didn’t try to bring attention to himself or talk to the chattering townspeople around them. It was a silent relief for him.

   All manner of people had come to hear the speech, including interested teenagers, small children weaving their way between legs, and the grandmothers of the town. It seemed that in war, everyone was going to be involved, even if they couldn’t quite be _involved_ , per say. It made for an odd mix of conversation around him. As he heard bits and pieces flit around his ears, he caught a wide variety of topics ranging from the last town football game, to the new grocery supplier, and to two men arguing over how to best patch a roof. It was such a variable collection of humanity, all unifying over the prospect of violence as if they were talking at Sunday dinner.

The room continued to hum as the minutes droned on, the anxiety and excitement only increasing as the time drew later. Feija had not decided to grace them with an arrival time, so all that the crowd could do was speculate and wait and wait. It was almost maddening, being stuck in a room embroiled with anger and bursting to the seams, waiting on the whims of a man

“Ah, the suspense is killing me,” Tino tried to joke, but Berwald didn’t laugh, and neither did he. It was too tense.

   Desperately searching for something to take his mind off of the anticipation, Tino settled with going back to people-watching. It was always something he had enjoyed- watching others, trying to figure out their lives and stories without a single scrap of knowledge. It was entertaining as it was time consuming, and it was something that would suit his current situation very well.

   The crowd undulated as if an ebbing tide. People would naturally shift from side to side, maneuver to speak over their shoulder, to get closer to the radio, taking with them the room. Mouths moved fast and heads nodded slow in trivial conversation, causing a rise and fall of combed hair. There was a man in front of Tino, one who he recognized to be a carpenter, fiddling with his dark mustache in the midst of the anxious energy of the room. He pulled and twirled the ends repeatedly, gaze flitting around the crowd. His eyes were a piercing blue, like so many of the people in their town, dark around the edges of the iris, as though pulled from a child’s coloring book.

   Tino watched him for what felt like some time, his own gaze turning hollow and absent in the process. He remained in his reverie despite the fracas around him, becoming near-deaf to alcohol-excited conversations and children’s laughter. He was violently startled from his short trip to space by a brief tug on his coat sleeve.

   Berwald’s face was stoic as he looked at Tino. “There’s a car outside,” He said, head tilting slightly to the cold-fogged bar window. Tino could see the yellow blurs in the frosted glass from two faded headlights, and if he strained he thought he could hear the slam of a car door.

   He looked back up at Berwald, who wore a mostly indiscernible expression. His eyes were still squinted, and his eyebrows knit, which gave him the appearance of a mildly disgruntled man who hadn’t yet received his order in a restaurant. But beneath it, Tino could see the hesitation in his eyes.

“Berwald-“ He started, only to be interrupted by a thump on the door. It was a characteristic sound of the Finnish north. The door was likely jammed shut from snowfall.

   Half of the people in earshot flicked their focus in the direction of the door, but the rest of the room remained either ambivalent or unknowing. When the door finally flung open and let in gusts of chilled air, the attention collective was finally caught. Several nondescript men in heavy coats walked through first, not speaking. Then, Tino could see two crowns, one so pale it was white, and the second darker than stained wood, pass through the doorframe before the outside world was once again shut out. It took the crowd a moment to realize, but soon chatter ceased as the group moved their way towards the scratched counters at the front of the floor.

   The room erupted.

* * *

 

   Twenty minutes later, everything was still as explosive as it had been the second Feija and Yrjä walked to the front of the room. Fists and arms bundled in gloves and shirts and buttoned sleeves were raised high, straining through the air as if trying to fight the wind itself. The Maame rang triumphantly to the high heavens of the wooden rafters, carried by strong shouts and distorted melodies until it filled every bite of air in the room. Tino used to find that part of all the meetings somewhat endearing; the Finnish were proudly singing of the fatherland despite the threat of invasion imminent. He had seen it as a display of fervent desire for freedom, an outburst of energy towards the greater cause. But now, it seemed nothing more than a bloodlust-fueled mantra on the lips of men with nothing better to do. 

   The statements had been rather cold, more matter-of-a-fact than Tino had anticipated. They were fighting the Soviets. Officially. They had contractually agreed to have the might of the world’s largest army rain upon them like the spring downpours.

   But Mainila. That had been something different entirely. They spun the Mainila incident beautifully, like spider’s silk. Feija had presented everything in a light only favorable to their own cause, without a single flaw to be found- not that Tino was searching for any. The speech had been wonderfully prepared, and it really just showcased Feija’s ability as an orator. Listening to it, he hadn’t been sure how much it was meant to serve the crowd versus how much it was meant to serve the man himself. Regardless, it seemed to the people gathered there that the Soviets were barbarians attempting to burn their homeland from the sky to their feet, like they did Mainila. Everyone had been strung along as if part of a garland.

   The Maame sang of a golden word, the golden word of “Finland”, of “fatherland”, but Feija had seemingly created a golden word himself: Mainila. There was not a single man, woman, or child who would not know of the occurrence come tomorrow morning. The revolutionary communication network, however limited it may be, would expediently spread word of the assault an arm’s-width from their border, as would the ensuing fervor.

Feija and Yrjä had since left, only enjoying the enraptured crowd for a minute or two. Despite their absence, the celebration still ensued.

   He caught Berwald observing the room carefully from the corner of his eye. He couldn't tell what he was thinking for the life of him.

“These aren’t my countrymen,” As soon as the words left his mouth, they sounded foreign in their resolve and surety. “This isn’t… right.” He wasn’t quite sure how to term his gut reaction, but it felt as though something wasn’t lining up: a puzzle piece that didn't fit, regardless of how many times the participant tried to jam it into the opening.

   The war to him seemed a stranger in his home. Yes, the environment seemed the same, but there was something distinctly out of place, unwelcome.

“What do you think of all of this?” Tino finally asked, choosing to look at the boiling crowd in front of him instead of his companion.

Berwald hummed in reply, taking several seconds more to scan the celebratory riotous in front of them. “Ya know my view on th’ war,” He responded.

“Do you think any of it’s worth it?” He asked, not looking at Berwald either. “Think of all of the people who will die, on both sides.”

“I’m not the person t’ ask,” He muttered, acknowledging what Tino had already anticipated.

   He nodded in understanding, and appreciation. Berwald was resolutely neutral in each of the issues surrounding the war as of now, and he admired his steadfastness. After all, if anything was to sway a man’s opinion, it was the threat of possible death or country-wide violence, yet Berwald had remained as unperturbed as long as he had known him.

   Suddenly, Tino felt the mood of those earlier words, dropped and left before Feija and Yrjä’s arrival, return. Things Tino didn’t want to say, at least not yet. The same cadence, the same subconscious seeking for more words, yet receiving none.

“If ya-“ Berwald started, but paused, changing the course of the sentence in the middle of it. “I can’t say much about th’ war, but I can talk about anythin’ else.” His face, albeit difficult to discern, seemed sincere, if slightly sheepish.

   Tino blinked back at him for a moment, no words leaving his mouth. His relationships with others throughout his life had mostly been tangential at best. Even when his parents had been alive, his personal discussions with them had been limited. They had never seemed open to receive anything, so he never offered. It had seemed the same with most others. He had remained the image of sweetness and helpfulness, aiding where needed and always cordial. He supposed that it had never crossed people’s minds that he, too, had substance beneath the surface.

   To be honest, Berwald’s polite, quiet offer seemed foreign to him. Not necessarily unwelcome, but surprising nonetheless. The Swede had already been witness to momentary fluctuations and something that could perhaps be called a shock-induced nervous breakdown, however out of character that might have been for him.

   When the words finally came, they were simple. “Thank you,” He stopped, unsure of what to say next, and Berwald didn’t push.

   Instead, they turned again towards the room and watched the raucous crowd boil and simmer. Children still weaved in between people’s legs.

“Let’s go,” He said. “I’m tired of watching.”

   Berwald nodded quietly, moving to yank open the snow-glued door to depart.

   The snowfall was no longer persistent outside, dropping lazily from the sky, caught in the indecisive winds. It swirled in the cutting night air, illuminated by faint streetlight that dyed it wheat-yellow. The streets were barren, occupied only by the warm glow of woodstoves in the homes that lined the cobble. The two of them walked side by side towards the eastern end of the village, away from the main street and towards their now shared house.

   Berwald still wore his dark blue coat, which seemed black and brown in the burgeoning night. He walked silently, as he often did, next to Tino as they traversed the sparsely lamppost-lit road beyond the edge of town proper. The silence was amplified and also deafened by the accumulated white, allowing Tino’s thoughts to drift to the dizzying day that was only now just concluding. The thrums of patriotic blood still lingered in Tino’s brain stem, but a stronger sense of disgust accompanied by a sharp twinge of fear forced themselves to the forefront of his mind, beckoning the force those in the bar had been lost to, to the more remote regions of his thoughts. He had felt something else in that tavern; there had been an undeniable sway that had enraptured every single one of them the moment Feija and Yrjä had sauntered into the room. A gospel built upon the plaster prophets of war, crumbling at first touch.

   But no one ever really liked to touch.

   It settled deep in his bones, the unease. He couldn’t back out of this now, he was an enlisted soldier and, well, they were going to war. It was like the times he tried to get out of a lunch date with his mother: hopeless and relentlessly futile.

“Berwald, are your parents still alive?” The words spilled, a spur-of-the-moment decision for small talk, it seemed. He really had no one to live for in this coming war. Did Berwald?

   He felt Berwald’s gaze on him for a second, perhaps wondering why in god’s name this was their current topic of conversation “My dad’s gone, but my mom’s still ‘round. Why?”

“Nothing. Just wondering.”

* * *

 

_November 29 th, 1939_

... 

   With the way the crowd was acting, Tino would have thought no one had ever seen a plane in their lives. It was as though the circus had come to town advertising a new fantastical act- gratuitously accompanied by whip-trained animals- on garish paper and in ill-advised typeset. The frenzy was similar to just that: circuses and bread.

   The previous morning, the Finnish government had sent a tiny envoy of planes. It couldn’t be deemed a fleet, or even really considered a collection. The group was comprised of thirteen aircraft, with the government ensuring there was to be more to follow. They were in good shape, from what Tino’s uninformed aviation opinion could discern, and likely on the newer end of the product warranty period. They had a multi-ringed circle painted on each side that looked mysteriously like a target, which Tino found to be just a bit of a cruel joke.

But the planes were far from the only event going on since war had been somewhat officially declared. Aside from the planes, the government had yet to offer a significant amount of help, and most of the logistics were left to the scantily-covered telegraph communication network that connected the border towns. It was a system that Feija had seemed to master quickly. Within a matter of the early hours the day after the tavern speech, dozens and dozens of guns had arrived inconspicuously at the steps of the apartment-turned-command-center. Later, they had been shifted to the same training grounds in which Tino had nearly thrown out his shoulder the other night.

   What ensued seemed like a bland smear of memory at this point. They were each told the appropriate selection of firearms for their position, given some guidance on which ammunition to choose, wished half a thimble of luck, and sent off. There hadn’t been as many people there as Tino would have been comfortable with, considering that it was a war with the Soviet Union they would be fighting. Perhaps forty at the most, which oddly paled in comparison to the number of men at the tavern speech the other night.

   He had his rifle carefully draped over his back over the improvised white uniforms each participant had been egged into putting together within less than a moment’s notice. He stood out sharply next to Berwald’s royal blue uniform, which had yet to be replaced with white garments for a few choice reasons.

   To put it bluntly, he was too tall. After some examination, he was only about 15 or so centimeters taller than him in shoes and socks, but most of the men in the village topped out right around Tino’s height, and with the addition of Berwald being decently, how should he say it, muscular, pants were all too short and the shoulders of coats all too tight.

   So, there the two of them were, crisp blue and blinding white, standing side by side, slightly removed from a clambering crowd surrounding a plane with targets painted on its sides.

   It was an unconventional afternoon, to say the least.

The fervor around the planes was ground to a sudden halt by the barking sound of a man’s straining voice. “Soldiers! Any soldiers part of the resistance, report to the command center immediately!” The order was repeated several times in order to make sure that any within the vicinity would definitely, without a doubt, hear it.

   Tino looked upward toward Berwald, who squinted down at him. “Well, I guess that’s us,”

“Mm hmm,” He hummed in response.

   Tino’s feet, honed from years of not leaving his tiny home town, immediately knew where to guide them in order to get to them to the “command center”. Berwald followed close behind. The journey there wasn’t particularly far. Perhaps a kilometer at most, and Tino figured it would go about as fast as his heartbeat.

   He felt himself quaking in his boots and his gloves and his coat and everywhere in between. He wasn’t a fool; he knew what all of the recent activity meant. They were going to fight their first battle, and all of them being called to the steps of the command center was the first stomping ground for orders.

   For once in his life, he desperately wanted to make small talk more than anything. Asinine discussion about the weather, someone’s neighbor, hell, even 17th century French colonial history, would be music to his ears at this point. He needed something, anything, to drown out the incessant thoughts and fears.

   Then, as they proceeded with the crowd, it seemed the universe had gifted him something. It wasn’t small talk, far from it, but it was a well-appreciated distraction. He heard a deep voice calling in the distance, accompanied by the thudding of heavy feet in heavy snow. He turned instinctively to see who, or what it was, and was confronted with a wavering tower of blue in the near distance, jogging towards he and Berwald, with something tucked under his arm. His other arm was waving at them, and his words finally came into focus. “Oxenstierna! Oxenstierna!”

   He looked to Berwald. “Any idea?”

   He shook his head in response.

   The two of them stopped in their tracks then, waiting for the guardsman to catch up. The movement of people continued to flow around them as they stood like an island in a stream. When the soldier reached them, Berwald saluted him, and the man mirrored the gesture readily. All formality with his partner.

   He said something to him in Swedish, and all that Tino could glean were the words “Stockholm” and “you”. Berwald nodded, accepted the small box the man had been carrying, saluted again, and went to opening it.

“What is it?” Tino asked as he peered to see Berwald struggling with the wrapping in his glove-clad fingers. He felt a man’s elbow bump into him as everyone continued past.

“Package from Stockholm. Glasses.” His answer was curt and to the point.

“Your glasses finally arrived?” He asked, dumbly, not knowing what else to do other than parrot him. “Good timing, I guess.”

   Berwald finally managed to open the box, and pulled out a pair of thin, metal-rimmed glasses that were the typical elliptical shape of the day. He delicately opened the wire arms and perched them on his nose, before blinking several times.

“Can you finally see?” Tino asked, with just an edge of cheekiness. He could no longer make petty jokes to himself about his spotter not being able to spot two fingers from three. A sorely missed bit of entertainment amidst his anxiety-ridden present situation, but his partner being able to see could, just theoretically, save his life in the months to come.

   Berwald’s response was to look down to him, blink again, eyes as wide open as a normal person’s. Without his scrunched eyebrows, Tino could honestly call him handsome. “So tha’s what ya look like.”

   As Tino stared back at him, he couldn’t help but snicker, then laugh. Whether or not Berwald had meant it as a joke, it seemed endlessly funny to his stress-addled mind. He continued laughing, eyes squinting up due to the sheer hilarity of that small moment. He caught a glimpse of Berwald’s face turning red out of abashment, contrasting quite brightly with the polished silver rims of his new glasses.

“Oh Berwald,” He said, ribs still shaking with small laughs, “I’m not laughing at you, I’m not, I promise.”

   Berwald still looked red, which made him want to laugh more, but he desperately tried to swallow it. “Berwald-“ He grabbed him by the arm. “I am just phenomenally terrified of going to war, so why not laugh while I can?” He punctuated his sentence with an embarrassing giggle.

   His faced dulled to a softer pink, before something Tino could call a smile tugged at his lips for a second.

The whole moment seemed bizarre and detached to him. Tino was rarely ever that frank or that blunt with anyone and, as war loomed beyond the next hillcrest in town, letting himself have a second of emotional vulnerability seemed justifiable. But his laughter, Berwald’s shocking embarrassment then small smile, their removal from the flowing crowd next to them, all culminated to make an experience that, if he was honest, seemed somewhat separated from their current reality. Perhaps, if they had met somewhere else, some other way, things could have been different for them. Not partners in murder and protection, but perhaps something else.

   Berwald was human too, and Tino always thought it apt that people were their most bare when faced with terror. It showed what could not come to fruition. Relationships undeveloped, letters unwritten, photos unshared. But, there was no time to mourn for what could not come to pass. So, Tino gathered himself, smiled at Berwald, and said “We should get going,”

   Berwald nodded, and they resumed their march towards the first step in what was going to be a very difficult climb.

* * *

    The snow hampered deft feet, so they did not make deft time. When they arrived at the haphazard command center, they were at the very back fringe of an already well-established crowd. All eyes rested on the small perch at the top of the creaking stairway, eagerly or anxiously, in Tino’s case, awaiting the moment when the rough-hewn door swung open. There was no fresh snow falling now, and the air had become stagnant and still as a result.

“Now do you see why I don’t care for that staircase?” He quipped, directed towards Berwald, gesturing to the now hopefully evident splintering and fraying planks.

   He hummed in response, eyes more carefully examining the steps now that his vision held more clarity. “If we weren’ at war, I’d fix it m’self,” He murmured.

“Fix it yourself?” He questioned, surprised by the tidbit of personal information. In their weeks knowing each other, Berwald had rarely mentioned any hints towards his life pre-Finland. “Are you a carpenter?”

“I’m a soldier, but I know how ta work,” He simply answered.

   Tino nodded in understanding, taking in the new fact about his partner. His own father had been a carpenter, and the small coincidence brought something of a smile to his face, if nothing else. After he was dead, the world had sent him another carpenter to replace the space, even if only for the time being. Funny, providence was.

   That providence did not leave Tino too long to dwell on the fact, as the most eagerly anticipated door opening in the northern hemisphere abruptly decided to take place, sending powdered snow flying and the crowd muttering. Yrjä Pajari’s black crown emerged from the frame, and it was only half a breath later that his deep voice boomed through the still air.

“There’s no use in me mincing my words: this war’s starting tomorrow morning.” Tino had always pegged Yrjä as a no-nonsense type of man.

   Thoughts spewed from the crowd immediately, beginning the second his sentence ended, before he had even exhaled. The emotions rolled through: anger, excitement, bloodlust, and Tino felt all of them, but _felt_ none of them.

   Yrjä refused to let those noises take his stage, however. “You are to be moved to Terijoki tonight. It is expected that this will be the route the Soviets take into the country, and you are to be prepared for this, starting tomorrow. You shall wait as long as it takes,” He paused for a breath to let the words settle and echo. “The Russian offensive’ll be large. They have more troops, more equipment,” He was interrupted by a momentary swelling in the crowd- bouts of concern and argumentation erupted amongst the soldiers there- and he waited a moment for the tension to pass. “But we are the ones who know this land, we are the ones fighting for our homes. Best of luck.”

“For Finland!” Feija added, voice louder and echoing and more full of emotion than Yrjä’s. The militiamen followed suit, the cry in some cases morphing into the Maame.

   With the help of a few scattered officers with fur hats, they were pushed in a few different directions, the crowd split into fifths to climb onto trucks. Although railroad cars would have likely been a far more efficient method to transport them, Tino knew enough to know that if there was one thing their fringe villages needed, it was a half-functional train system. Snow-slicked logging roads were likely the only way to go.

   As Tino climbed onto the bed of a covered car, Berwald followed right behind him, his long legs making easy work of the high stepping post that had given Tino a bit of a trouble. They sat, side by side, in the back as more men followed them. Tino recognized many of them from the town store or from the tavern, and most were men a little older than him, early thirties or late twenties. Many had wives, some had children. All different stripes of life, of occupation, and all were willingly transporting themselves to what could be a brutal theater.

   They remained parked for perhaps ten minutes, until the car was rocked by the slam of the driver’s side door, and they pulled away. Tino watched as the trucks proceeded in a line down the main street, then watched as his village began to grow small. Before long, it was a collection of buildings in miniature, and then disappeared entirely over the snow-clad horizon. 

* * *

 

   The frost-bitten open bay of the car was riddled with excitement as the hours wore on during their journey to Terijoki. Tino had originally tried to take the time to rest, attempting to close his eyes and let sleep take him, but the wind was a little too fierce and the conversation a little too animated for him to truly slip off. So, he settled for blank-stared observation of those around him, alternating with short moments of conversation with Berwald. He didn’t know much about the man, so why not start now?

“Favorite color?”

“Don’ have one,”

“I don’t believe that,”

   Berwald shrugged, continuing to stare out of the back of their transport as they bumped over the rickety logging roads. All that they could see were the sparse edges of evergreen forests entrenched in deep snow.

“Do you like dogs?”

   He nodded.

“What’s your hometown?”

“Stockholm.” All of his answers were frustratingly brief.

“Favorite food, then?” _Please give me more than a three word response_ Tino silently asked of no deity in particular. Berwald’s Finnish was frustratingly clipped, not due to non-fluency- he was actually quite proficient- but simply due to his speaking habits. The towering man seemed somehow intimidated of speaking at all, a wild contrast to his exterior.

   This inquiry gave Berwald a bit of pause. “Lussebullar,” He finally decided, after a few moments of consideration. “Ya don’ have those here, do ya? Too much Finnish.”

   Tino shook his head, turning over the word in his mind. It was nothing familiar to him.

“They’re, how do you say…” He trailed off, searching for the right word that wouldn’t come easily. “Saffron buns.” His diction made it sound like more of a question than an answer. “They’re jus’ saffron an’ raisins.” He still searched for the words, but was able to find them in the end. “Make ‘em around Advent.”

“Sounds good,” Tino commented, trying to conjure up the taste. “I’ll have to try ‘em some day.”

   Berwald hummed in response, and they lapsed back into another period of silence.

   Tino could feel that their drive was coming to a close. It had been, what, two hours by now, and he knew that the little resort town wasn’t too much farther a drive. The prospect terrified him, growing closer to their first designated battlefield, but he tried to push down the developing fear and focus instead on imagining what saffron buns might taste like.

“I’ve never been more ready to fight,” He heard a man across from him say. He was older, maybe mid-forties. “I was laid up in the hospital during the civil war, but now I can finally serve my country.” The excitement in his voice was so thick that Tino could almost slice it. Each word bounced with enthusiasm.

   He came to the conclusion that there were a lot of people far more willing than him to fight this war.

“You’re such an old man- good luck even finding your sight!” A younger man teased, closer to teens than he was to twenties, most likely. The former scowled at him.

“At least I know how to handle a gun,” The voices of the other men in the car pitched back and forth as the teasing continued- lighthearted and carefree, almost like a typical day socializing over weekly shopping.

   A clanging knock interrupted the raucous. “We’ll be arrivin’ soon,” A voice echoed from the other side of the metal barrier between them and the driver’s seat. “Settle down, there’ll be orders.”

   The volume decreased, but the tittering remained just as frequent. It was like seeing boys suddenly excited over a new toy at primary school- infantile and innocent. Try as he might, Tino couldn’t quite match that scenario to the beginnings of a war against a power emerging on the grand world stage.

“You there, do ya have anything white to wear? At all?” A man two seats down from Tino directed towards his horrendously obvious and blue partner.

Berwald shook his head at the man.

“Dear god, you’ll get someone killed out there,” He flung open the buttons on his coat, which Tino noticed was a good size or two big on the man, and shrugged it off, revealing another coat underneath, and passing it down to Berwald. “It was big on me anyway. Do you more good than it’ll do me.”

   He nodded appreciatively, and maneuvered his broad shoulders in the limited space the corner of the car provided until he slipped the coat on in its entirety. Remarkably, it did fit, even if just a bit tight across. His gloved hands slipped the buttons back through their holes up to the throat.

“That’ll go down to your knees, give or take.” The man commented again. “Do ya a heck of a lot.”

“Now we only need to find you pants,” Tino commented, smiling a bit. His partner looked a little more at-home in the sea of white both inside the car and outside. Royal blue pants and gloves still stuck out, but the white coat tempered them just a bit.

   Light laughter rolled through the car for a few moments, Berwald’s cheeks lightly burning at the sudden attention. Thankfully for his partner, the embarrassment didn’t last long, and the car came to a lurching halt quite suddenly. Tino looked out at what was behind them, but still only saw the same empty roads, and found himself momentarily confused.

“Step out. We’ll direct ya to the right places.” The soldier who drove them unfastened the back door for them, and gestured outside. “Welcome to Terijoki.” He said, somewhat jokingly, as though the leader of a guided tour.

After a drive that dragged for far too long due to anticipation, everything seemed to suddenly move quite quickly. Like cattle, they were herded from the car through the snow into a larger congregation of the men from his village and from many others. They were divided, and then split again, into their respective ‘fields of expertise’, after which they simply waited.

   The wind bit. It was only November, but the temperature seemed to hover around a sharp -15 degrees. If the trend continued, Tino knew that the war would be all the more dangerous. Outright violence was risky in and of itself, of course, but an even harsher winter might spell death for many more who weren’t felled by artillery.

“How cold does it get in Stockholm?” Tino asked, looking up at his partially-white-clad partner.

“’Bout -3 in th’ winter,” He answered, flexing his chilling fingers in his gloves. “Coldest in January.”

“No kidding,” Tino responded offhandedly. Berwald would need to adjust to the cold very quickly. He almost felt a twinge of remorse. “It can get to -50 here.”

   Berwald looked away with an expression that might have signaled discontent or maybe even a hint of intimidation. No vocal response was forthcoming.

“Yep,” He said, kicking a toe-full of snow. “It’s gonna get much colder than it is today.”

   Frankly, he dreaded the thought. He had quite a tolerance for cold, and it didn’t bother him really, but he knew that living outside for the majority of the day in these sort of circumstances was not going to make their tasks any easier. It might render it more difficult for the Soviets, too, which he supposed was a positive development. But, still, he did not look forward to the prospect of fighting a war in such bitter temperatures.

“Väinämöinen?” An officer called out his name a few meters away, catching his attention. “Väinämöinen?” He called again.

“Here- here sir,” He tried his best to push aside the bodies between him and the man with the clipboard, which took a few moments too long. Berwald had stayed put behind him, watching just above most of the crowd.

“You’ve got your own unit.” He said, handing him a slip of paper bearing three names other than his own and Berwald’s. “Get ‘em, grab your guns over there,” He gestured over his shoulder. “And pick a roof.”

“What?” He nearly sputtered as the note was stuffed into his palm. “I can’t even-“

“It’s nothin’ fancy, kid. A mobile sniper unit. Just go where we tell ya to.” He dismissed him suddenly, turning on his heel to call for another man somewhere in the thinning crowd.

   Tino stood behind the officer for a second, mouth flapping open several times to voice a complaint that never came. He eventually forced his eyes to look down at the list of names in his palm, scanning them briefly. They were all strangers to him; not a single person from his village had found its way into his own unit, which both disappointed and relieved him. He lacked familiarity with any of the men, but least no one he knew would see what his fumbling attempt at command would look like.

   Lost in thought, he barely felt Berwald’s presence behind him. When he did, he started just a bit, looking over his shoulder. “I, um,” His thoughts were running either five leaps ahead of him, or were stuck kilometers in the rearview mirror, he couldn’t be sure. “I have a unit.” He ended it like a question.

“Snipers?” Berwald asked, peering down at the paper in his hand.

Tino nodded. “There’s an odd number of us, though. We’re short a spotter, I think.”

   Berwald shrugged.

“Could you-“ Ah, what an awkward question to ask. “Could you yell their names? I don’t think my voice is loud enough to carry.” Tino could talk up a storm when he was nervous, but one thing he wasn’t was loud-spoken. He had always had trouble even simply speaking over a slow lunch crowd at the tavern when eating with someone.

He nodded, and picked up the paper. “Might not be able ta say some of the last names,” Tino watched him go syllable by syllable with his gaze down the list.

“That’s okay,” He affirmed. “For now, we all just need to be in one place. Introductions come after that, I’m guessing.”

   Squinting not because of a lack of glasses, but because of the near-blinding glare from the snow, Berwald looked up at the crowd before starting. “Lorens Harmaajärvi,” A pause, along with his cheeks reddening again out of embarrassment. He clearly did not appreciate attention. “Oiva Vanhanen,” A second pause. “Paulja Virtanen.” A final pause, followed by a repetition of each. The names were said a little more crisply than a Finn would- his consonants were a little too pronounced- but it was understandable, like the rest of his speech.

   His voice was commanding when he used it. Loud and sonorous, if not rich in nature.

   His cheeks remained just slightly colored as the crowd’s attention left him.

“Thank you,” Tino said quietly, as they waited for the three men to come towards a very tall man in a very small crowd.

   Within a relatively short span of time, an older man approached them, a rifle slung over his right shoulder. He looked close to 40, his salt and pepper hair already showing the telltale signs of age, but his face showing him to be younger than his scalp claimed to be. A few light smile lines and more pronounced crow’s feet were what betrayed his middle-agedness. He walked evenly toward them.

“You called an Oiva Vanhanen, right?” His eyes were green. “I’m him.” He stuck his hand out to Berwald, who blinked several times.

“I’m actually your- um, your commander,” Tino interjected, not having quite enough courage to meet the man’s gaze. He hesitantly raised his hand. “Tino Väinämöinen.”

   Oiva grasped his hand firmly, without squeezing overwhelmingly hard, and smiled slightly. “It’s nice to meet you, Väinämöinen.” They shook, then he let go and pivoted towards Berwald. “Swedish?”

   Berwald nodded. “Berwald Oxenstierna.”

   Oiva shook his hand then, too, following it by offering a few quick sentences in what Tino knew was Swedish. Although Berwald didn't betray much in his expressions, he could tell that he was shocked, if not simply surprised.

“I fought back in the civil war. I was a sniper then, too. Had a couple of Swedes in my company, so I picked up a bit while I served my time.” He explained.

   Berwald hummed a response, simply looking at the man with his typical neutral, if intimidating, expression.

“You’ve got two more, right?” Oiva gesture to the list Tino still gripped tightly in his hand.

“Oh,” He replied, looking down as if he needed the affirmation. “Yes. Lorens Harmaajärvi and a Paulja Virtanen.”

“That is me,” A soft, higher-pitched voice sounded behind them. “I am Paulja Virtanen. A pleasure.” He spoke formally, but still carried the trademarks of a man from the border villages. His crown wore chestnut hair, like many of those with assimilated Sami heritage, and his nose could be found in almost half of Tino’s village. Unlike Oiva, he didn’t wear a gun.

“Tino Väinämöinen,” He introduced himself for the second time that day, and watched as their small quartet did the same amongst each other.

   After his introduction, Paulja proved non-conducive to conversation. He was a quiet man, much like Berwald, and not even a minority of the small-talk that developed as they waited on their final member lie in his court.

   The crowd around them was mostly separated at that point, groups forming naturally or by unit, and Tino began to worry that his fifth man hadn’t been sent, or had already deserted. If he had, he couldn’t have blamed him: Tino would be lying if he said he hadn’t contemplated running since the second he’d arrived here. But, nonetheless, his absence was starting to eat just a bit at his nerve endings.

“Berwald, could you try again?” He asked. “Calling for him.”

   He nodded and, just as he was about to open his mouth, found himself on the receiving end of a harsh jab with the stock of a rifle.

“Don’t do that again. You’re voice is way too damn loud.” A young man, a mere teenager, had appeared next to Berwald, looking cross. “I’m here, jeez. It only took me a few minutes.”

   He was short- not as a short as Tino, but was far from what he would call tall. His hair was the same bright blond as his own, but far less tempered, lashing wildly up and to the sides all at once. His eyes were a vibrant hazel, more of a moss color than a brown, and they showed with something fierce that Tino didn’t want to have to tame. His shoulders were a little awkwardly broad compared to the rest of his body, and his legs a little too lanky. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen.

“Well, since you’re all just starin’ at me, I guess I’ll introduce myself.” He said it as more of a complaint than an offer. “I’m Lorens Harmaajärvi. You pronounced my last wrong, you Swede.” He didn’t offer his hand, but instead crossed his arms.

   The round of introductions began again, albeit more subdued at the unwillingness of the latest addition to the group. When Berwald’s turn came, Lorens asked: “Are you the commander or somethin’? You don't look rightly dressed for it, if you ask me.”

   Berwald didn’t even attempt to sputter a response, only narrowed his eyes at the boy before Tino took over. “I’m your commander, Tino Väinämöinen.”

   Lorens met his gaze challengingly. “Väinämöinen? Like the folklore character? So much for a magical voice.” He snickered as he said it, clearly amused by his own jokes.

   Tino took it in stride. “We’ve been told to go pick up rifles, then find a roof somewhere.”

“That’s rather vague,” Paulja commented.

“Come on, we’re mostly militia. You expected this to be organized?” Lorens laughed at himself again, walking off towards where Tino assumed the catalogue of rifles and pistols was kept.

   He shared a look with Berwald, one of mostly skepticism, along with a creeping element of annoyance. Lorens was cocky, young, inexperienced. If Tino knew better, he might say that he was out to get himself killed. With that shared understanding, they began to walk, following the boy through the snow and the crowd until they reached a vehicle parked on the edge of town.

   Its back, just like the one that carried all of them here, was wide and open, but unlike their method of transportation, was filled with guns. More empty, now that many soldiers had come to collect their arms, but a sizeable collection still remained on the bed. Some of them looked familiar from Tino’s limited days training back home, and others still looked foreign to him. Staring at the collection, Tino felt a little lost as for which one to grab.

“How much experience with a gun do you have?” Oiva stood next to him, fingering the strap on the rifle he already carried. Tino assumed that he had brought it from home.

“Admittedly, not a lot. I’ve used a pistol, and practiced with a rifle a little bit. But, I don't have much.”

   His answer took Oiva aback just a bit; that much he could tell. “Not a lot?” His gaze picked over the assortment of guns. “Go with this one, then,” He reached for a warm-wooded rifle placed haphazardly near the wall of the car. “An M-28/30. It’s a Finnish-made variant of the Mosin-Nagant rifle; the imitation of an old Russian workhorse. Not the most modern, by far, but it’ll do the job, and the kickback isn’t too bad since it’s a bolt. Should work for ya.”

   Tino carefully took the rifle from Oiva’s outstretched arm, turning it over in his hands. It was familiar, from his short weeks practicing at the range at home, yet still foreign and new to him. The pewter trigger and barrel were worn, a little scratched from previous use, but it was in relatively good shape. On its surface, it seemed just like a metal tool with an excessively large wooden handle, but Tino understood the implications.

   It felt surprisingly light in his hands.

   Berwald searched the catalogue with much more purpose. He reached for two rifles. One was not so dissimilar from Tino’s, albeit thinner and with a bayonet attached to the muzzle, but the second one was quite different. It looked quite a bit weightier, with a thick black barrel and a disc-shaped magazine made of black gunmetal. It was, however, shorter than the previous gun. After pulling both over his right shoulder, he finished by grabbing a nondescript beige bag and a compact pistol that Tino recognized as the one Feija had forced into his hand that fateful day. He was still carrying it deep in the left pocket of his coat.

   Paulja picked a rifle at random, as did Lorens, and they moved away from the car, fixing straps and grabbing ammunition, along with several glass scopes. Tino’s attention turned towards the outlying of buildings nearest to them, scanning and desperately trying to think of reasons as to why he should pick one over the other.

“The railway station,” He finally decided, the destination being more of a random choice than a planned one.

   It rose not far in the distance, brought to his attention by a skinny brick stack next to the main building. It was two stories tall, with the limited sprawl of a railway yard laid out in front of it. There was an absence of railcars.

   Without any visible complaint, the five of them trekked through the snow towards the white building, blending in with the weather. The train tracks were covered in about twenty or twenty-five centimeters of snow, catching the toe of Tino’s left boot, nearly sending him sprawling. If not for his arm frantically grabbing for air and finding Berwald’s shoulder instead, he would have likely ended up with a bruised knee and a bitten tongue, among other things. After regaining his balance, he apologized to Berwald.

“It’s no issue.” Was his only response, looking ahead.

   They all continued on, Lorens nearly buzzing behind him with zeal. Tino guessed that he was still in secondary school, on the younger end at that. After all of the meetings at home, and the men in his car, and the men in the clearing when they first arrived at Terijoki, he hadn’t seen someone so young don white and carry a gun. The youngest man in his village that had volunteered was a boy named Leo, who had turned nineteen the month before, but Lorens was certainly a handful of years younger at least.

“Lorens,” He said over his shoulder. “Aren’t you a bit young to be here?”

   An indignant huff was all he received in response as they neared the station.

“How old are you?” He tried a second time.

   A moment of brooding silence, along with footsteps that sounded more frustration-fuelled.

“Why did you decide to fight?"

   Lorens’ footsteps seemed heavier now, and his boots crushed the snow with more force than before. “That’s my business, okay?” He spat the statement back at Tino, his voice sounding stunted by a simmering fury.

   If there was one thing Tino didn't like, it was verbal confrontation. “All right. I didn’t mean to pry.”

   He could feel Lorens silently fuming as he began to walk faster than Tino, reaching the building before the rest of them.

“There’s a fire exit on the side, it looks like,” Oiva interjected. “That’ll be the best way up.”

   Tino would be happy taking all of his cues from the older man, relying on experience both on the battlefield and in life, instead of having to give orders himself. He knew that Oiva’s aid now was just that: aid. It wouldn’t last forever, and as soon as he sensed Tino was marginally less uncomfortable, he was sure that he would step back and let Tino do what he was assigned to do. The prospect wasn’t a pleasant one, and if he were being frank, he wanted to delay the beginning of his leadership as long as he could. Oiva was the sort of man that should have been given post naturally, a fact that all of them likely acknowledged. And yet, it was Tino Väinämöinen, just shy of twenty-one years old, without the slightest clue as to how to manage a unit of men, who was at the helm.

   Although, perhaps he had potential yet. As they rounded the building to approach the fire exit, he noticed that the railroad station had a fairly decent roof on which they could perch. The area around it was relatively empty, with the nearest crowd of buildings being a couple hundred meters away. The building itself had some height to it, and would allow them to see quite a distance without being seen themselves. He could have attributed it to luck, or he could have acknowledged that he had made a sound choice. Either way, he supposed that he had chosen well.

   The wind had relented a bit since they had arrived, the sun starting to dip just a bit, bringing with it the relative calm of an impending winter night. It made the climb to the top of the building via a rusting ladder a bit less harrowing, but the accumulation of ice on the building was brutal. Finding a grip was difficult, and when he could, the tough-packed snow was still slippery and prone to crumbling under his fingers.

   After Oiva, he was the next to finish the ascent, standing sure-footedly on the roof. It was a blank space: a flat top, covered in a thick fall of snow, with indented walls rising perhaps a scant twenty centimeters above the white. There was barely enough room to conceal one man’s head in its current state, which Tino knew would make them too vulnerable.

   Before he could act on his thoughts, however, Berwald had already started disturbing the fresh snow, pushing aside handfuls of it by deepest of notches in the walls so that they could sit in relative safety. The rest of their motley group followed suit, quickly pushing the snow into banks that wouldn’t rise above the walls, but allowed them to sit in recess. It didn’t take too long, the effort lasting perhaps ten minutes.

   Lowering himself into a sitting position on the now-uncovered roof, Oiva turned to the group. “Who here has military experience?”

   Berwald nodded, but no one else made any gestures. Oiva looked to Paulja with a surprised look. He was in his physical prime, comfortably shouldering a gun. Thinking that he was in the military was far from a wild assumption.

“I moved here to study the weather. I’m a meteorologist from Helsinki. The only time I’ve used a gun was to hunt with my father as a adolescent.” He explained, fingering the strap of his rifle.

   Oiva hummed in response. “Well, we’ll have to make do, I suppose. Berwald,” His attention swiveled back to Tino’s spotter. “You’re his spotter, I’m guessing?” He gestured to the small bag he had brought with him, along with the heavier sniper’s rifle.

“I’m trained for it, at least.” He responded.

“Why don’t you help him, then. I’ll introduce Paulja and Lorens to how things work.”

   Berwald nodded, and turned to Tino. Still standing, he lowered himself to his knees, gesturing for Tino to do the same.

“You’re gonna want ta lie down,” He said, further lowering himself so that he sat with his legs crossed like a child.

   Tino did as he was instructed, and guessed his way through the process, guided by Berwald. He perched the nose of his rifle on the notch in the wall, and piled the snow beneath him high enough that he could see through his scope, but not so high as to cause his terribly blond hair to be seen from the ground.

   Berwald had to ask Oiva how to say several things, flitting Swedish back and forth every now and then, before turning back to Tino with more precise descriptions.

   The way that they split their duties seemed relatively simple: Berwald, a rushed but thoroughly trained sniper, would alternate with Tino at a rifle every hour or so, depending on the intensity of fighting. When Tino was the one lying on the roof, Berwald would serve by scoping with a small tool contained in the inconspicuous bag that he had lighted from the supply car earlier, help him estimate ranges and the wind, adjust his sights, and pinpoint the best time to fire when Tino was uncertain. Tino was supposed to serve the same function for Berwald as well, which sounded quite daunting to him.

“Don’ worry ‘bout it for now,” He had said when Tino brought up the topic. “You’ll get th’ hang of it.”

   His voice had been reassuring then, and Tino could at least feel secure in that fact.

   After the instruction period was finished, Oiva settled himself in between Tino and Berwald, and Lorens and Paulja. “Since I’ve got the most experience, I’ll suffer without a spotter,” He said it with a laugh. “Someone might have ta cover my breaks, though.”

   After the group was settled, the sun was almost halfway behind the curve of the earth, and the sky was stained with muted pastels, hidden behind pale gray snow-clouds. Lying on his belly, the butt of the rifle comfortably in the crook of his shoulder, Tino lowered himself so that his cheek pressed into the wood as well, peeking through the scope, his breath coming out in puffs. He was met with fog.

“I think that my scope’s frosted over,” He said, trying to work it from where it was attached, finally pulling it off, only to be confronted by an ice-layered lens.

“That’s bad luck,” Oiva commented, taking the time to look through his own scope. “I can still see fine. Did we bring any extra scopes?” He asked then, glancing to his right to the other two men. Both shook their heads.

“It is far too dark now for you to go and attempt to find the supply again,” Paulja asserted. “I believe that you’ll have to wait until morning.”

   Slightly frustrated, Tino sat the frozen scope in the snow next to him, and tried to determine how effectively he could make out distant objects with only the metal sights. It was every bit the same as when he had tried his hand back in his village, only that the metal was more silver than gray this time.

“I think that I could be able to make do,” He stated, almost emphatically, peering at the village below. He felt that his head rested lower like this, without the glass scope, something which made him marginally less vulnerable, and did bring a modicum of comfort.

   He continued to stare through the metallic configuration- a triangle and a circle- and slightly swiveling the barrel of his rifle to look around him. He settled on looking at a storefront obviously just abandoned. Several hundred meters away, he could make out the stacks of books on a children’s table, painted in bright reds and yellows, in the window display. It had obviously been left in a hurry: he thought that he could see a knocked-over chair behind the colorful table. To think that so many people had likely just fled, frightened in the face of their red neighbor… The thought brought to focus his anxieties, and blurred his vision. He found his mind racing again, running itself ragged through a thousand different scenarios and subconscious fears. His chest felt full of pent-up _something_. Not joy, not even fear, but some unnamed thing he had yet to encounter in his short, bland life. All that he could say was that it pressed against his chest plate and made it hard to breath and he couldn’t-

“Tino,” He heard next to him, followed by a gentle touch to his right hand, the one that was gripping the smooth wood. Berwald glanced down at him. “If ya shake, ya won’t be able to make a shot.”

   He hadn’t even realized that he’d been shaking, and frantically tried to calm himself down, ultimately rendering him more nervous.

   Berwald kept his hand lightly on top of Tino’s until the episode ended, until he managed to get his anxieties under control. He didn’t thank him for it, but in hindsight, it’s something that he was tremendously grateful for, and he never even told Berwald, in the end.

   They sat in the encroaching darkness, watching it arrive from the east, just as their opponent would in the coming days. Tino laid there, on a cold roof in a foreign town, his grip more relaxed now, and waited with bated breath.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have become aware that the height joke isn’t quite as funny today, since the average height in Finland is now Sweden’s canonical height. But! I’m just going to go with the fact that people were shorter in the past and kind of just play along with the stereotype.
> 
> Also, Väinämöinen is a central character in the epic Kalevala and is actually a really important character in Finnish folklore, known as the god of chants, songs, and poems. (Which is bitterly ironic considering that Tino’s speaking habits aren’t exactly the heights of godly stanza). Anyway, there’s your fun Finnish folklore lesson for the day.
> 
> Last note: I decided to use the more German school of thought when it comes to sniping/spotting (2 people) instead of the Soviet (1 person) because the Germans had a lot of influence in the region once Finland became autonomous (also it serves a function with Berwald and Tino’s interpersonal relationship, ultimately).
> 
> I hope that you enjoyed this chapter (after the lengthy delay)!
> 
> If you have questions and comments you really want interaction with, please go to my tumblr @ onebillionstars!


	4. Sequence 4: Valjeta/Gryning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, we dive headlong into the abyss. This chapter won't be as long as the last, but that is not a difficult qualification to make, considering that chapter 3 was a grand total of 29 pages here in unadjusted Microsoft format.
> 
> Hetalia, and all of its characters, belong to Himaruya Hidekaz. The only thing I own here is the scenario.

_November 30th, 1939_

_..._

The stars rose and spun and fell behind the horizon's curtain with little fanfare. The night passed slowly, with Tino perched on a physical and mental edge, and his racing heart had barely lulled.

Sleep had been difficult.

As the first signs of dawn began to creep over the snow-coated town, he was aware of the men in his unit who had been trying to sleep on the concrete roof rouse themselves, alerted by the breaking light of the new day. Blackcaps warbled into the still air, but all seemed quiet.

Berwald was propped up against the wall of a ledge that sheltered them, head drooped slightly to the left, arms crossed, and face still smoothed by sleep. His breaths were even, soft, seemingly unaffected by the prospect of his resting place being inside a soon-to-be warzone. A bite of frost had touched the left rim of his glasses, the crystals occupying just short of a square centimeter, and a few scant flakes of snow dusted his pale hair. The sight brought a small smile to his face, but the fear still didn't fade.

He heard a groan from behind him, and his attention turned to Oiva, whose waking form had just begun to move about. "Mornin', Tino," The man called softly, stretching his arms in front of him.

Tino responded in kind, and turned his head to the encroaching dawn, a soft blue just beginning to crest over the tree line into the snow-tinged eerie gray of night.

Despite the situation, this early morning period did not seem terribly separated from the real world. Yes, they were still mostly strangers to him, but it seemed that even now, people still had their normalcy and tendencies, all the same.

Berwald, who had already been established as a light sleeper, had woken from Tino and Oiva's exchange, eyes squinting from the snow already turned bright by half a modicum of light. For a moment, he looked confused as to why he fell asleep on a rooftop, which Tino honestly found endearing, but he quickly found his bearings and rolled his neck to stretch.

"Any sign of someone in charge?" Oiva asked, raising his head just above the rooftop to scan for hints of troop movement.

"Everyone is probably still asleep," Tino offered, glancing out at the still town before quickly ducking his head behind the cement ledge. "Most people from home didn't even wake quite this early."

"Scope still frosted over?" Oiva asked, eyes still lingering over Terijoki.

Comprehension did not register with Tino for a few seconds as his brain searched to interpret what the older man meant. When his sleep-filled, or lack thereof, mind cleared, he grabbed for the metal tube beside him, raised his eye to it, and was met with a crystalline fog. He nodded. "Can't see a thing,"

"Well, that's a bit inconvenient, but until someone comes by, I'm afraid you'll have ta make do."

He saw Berwald nod in his periphery.

The passage of time witnessed Lorens and Paulja wake, the former immensely displeased at the temperature, which had dipped to what Paulja estimated to be around negative twenty, a respectable chill, but one that, admittedly, they all should be accustomed to. The winter was still early, and it had not truly frozen through the Finnish. Not yet.

Much later, Tino could not recall what exactly had transpired that morning, in the calm before the hell of war descended upon them, but he supposed a devoid memory simply meant that only tranquil banality had filled those moments. It was always the things you took for granted, they say. After all, that morning hardly seemed exceptional to him; if anything, it was a startling hint of normalcy in a world that was fraying at the edges.

Ah, what he took for granted.

Someone produced rations from somewhere. Something meager, barely filling, but filling nonetheless. They were quiet. The air smelled sharp. Berwald felt warm next to him as they leaned on the wall. Lorens maintained a stubborn silence. Blackcaps sang. Oh, how he loved the blackcaps that adorned his trees during the early mornings.

Then came the sound of insects.

A faint buzz, tinny and heavy-sounding, like the cicadas that occasionally arrived with the swollen air of summer. Barely a beat passed before a yellow sign flashed in Tino's head. The cicadas came with the snowmelt, with the perch of the sun high and bright in the sky. Around them, snow encased all in a glimmering shell.

The alarm seemed to register most distinctly with Oiva, whose eyebrows dropped so suddenly it was almost comical. He turned to Tino, eyes holding something between anticipation and fear, and he understood.

"Positions," Oiva called, moving to lie prostrate on the ground, pressing the rifle stock to his right shoulder.

He was the only one to move. The other four remained upright, eyes adhered to the same point on the horizon. A black bird appeared in the near distance, bringing with it the rising sun from the east. The pale blue had given way to soft orange, which was encroached upon by a brilliant, cloud-cast crimson.

The buzzing grew louder.

There were more cicadas.

"Tino," Oiva hissed, sending him a sharp look form his position behind a gun. "Get your head low, now." His voice held something new to him.

He couldn't tell whether it was authority or protectionism.

He shifted, scraping through the new dusting of snow until his chest lay half-propped on the freeze. Berwald maneuvered so that his gaze still slipped through the slot of the wall, keeping a blue eye on the ring of buildings below, but that his body remained within a vague ring of safety. Lorens flopped unceremoniously into the wet snow, looking almost bored, while Paulja was immediately captured by slight shaking.

What a motley crew they were: an experienced veteran, a weatherman, a child, a Swede, and a man scared out of his mind.

It seemed that the rest of the troops stationed in Terijoki were coming to the realization that planes were in the sky independently, with sudden sounds from several directions at once, from what Tino could tell. Shouts ascended to high heaven as scuffling echoed through the frostbitten air. This seemed neater than what Tino had expected a battlefield. Although, he took his own comments with a grain of salt: the hell he was anticipating hadn't quite yet begun.

He felt his heart in his throat, hammering against the expanse of esophagus pressed against his coat, soaking in the seeping cold below him. He felt sick. He felt giddy.

He felt frozen.

The sun pulled itself up fully from behind the horizon at last, and the wind stopped. It was this moment then, as the clarity and the violence of daybreak finally crashed over them, and the easterly winds gained their bearings, that it began. A  _crack_  rang out. Tino listened for the sound he knew would follow. It came. The wood splintered. The snow became airborne once again.

"Berwald-" He started, unable to finish.

"'ll be fine," His partner looked down at him with a frightening amount of surety then, his eyes shining blue, even behind his lenses, in the cold morning light. They reminded him of the color of Lake Saimaa when the algae had begun to bloom: deep with encroaching green.

His frenetic heart stopped then as his eyes met his, and he could feel Berwald steadying him. The world faded for but a brief moment, and all that there was was a puff of even breath, an impenetrably deep gaze. Then it came slamming back into focus as Tino heard buildings erupt into shards somewhere in the distance.

 _You'll be fine_ , he repeated to himself, leveling his eye to the piece, seeing the world encapsulated within the confines of a tiny peak. Below, he could easily make out the rustling of men in the alleyways and streets, topped with white hats and hoods, dark rifles slung over backs and hanging in between hands. The larger artillery units- heavier guns and the like- must have been stationed farther in the outskirts of town, as nothing bulky was anywhere near him. They seemed to be somewhat tucked back in their lines, which he thought would make a job difficult, but with a good eye, perhaps…

"Wind's gone right now. Keep that in mind when taking your shots," Oiva called softly, his cheek positioned neatly along the stock of his rifle.

Lorens was just to Tino's right, and there was something angry in his eyes that he didn't want to approach. He couldn't see much of him, as half of his face of obscured from his view by his gun. He hadn't noticed that he was left-handed.

The sound was still far away, and seemed to move slowly, as though they were trapped underneath the ice of a long-frozen stream. It was muted, yet distinct, echoing off of the walls before them. He saw a lick of flame and a flash of light in the distance, and then more, forming a strangled earth-wrought aurora. He heard popping then, like the pitter-patter of a rat across wooden floorboards, and somewhere in his mind he registered that it must have been gunfire. Heard in rapid succession, it was softer than he had imagined, more like the time someone had gotten a hold of a case of small fireworks in the village and set them off one night, and less like weapons.

The night had been a clear one, shortly after spring had crested over their small valley in the hills. Tino was just about nine at that time, and that year the rains had held off even more so than usual, leading to stunning skies and cirrus clouds being the only wisps that occupied the heavens. There had been a group of teenagers notorious for getting into all sorts of things, perhaps three or four boys, if he remembered correctly. Upon thinking about it, he could only remember the one who he perceived was the ringleader- a boy named Niilo- a wily freckled thing with a shock of chestnut red hair. The story went that after travelling to Helsinki to help his father with some sort of business, he had run into a merchant in some tiny village who was selling an inconspicuous wooden crate only marketed in the vaguest of terms, which he purchased anyway with his few earning for the hell of it. Tino had always doubted that part of the story, but he had been nine, before the worst of things were to come, and he had liked to entertain fantastical notions. So, despite what his infantile common sense had told him them, and told him now, he still held faith in a hooded merchant by the wayside. If nothing else, it made the story more ridiculous, and sometimes little lies like those were preferable to a bland story of selective commerce.

So, he had returned to their street-long village toting a shipment of absolute lack of necessity, which immediately delighted his unwieldy friends. He liked to imagine that they got drunk on Koskenkorva Viina, scrapped any more elaborate plans that had been in the works, and simply lit up the sky just to see it glow. He could still picture it now, the sparks of red and green and yellow shattering over the main street, visible even from his house in the foothills. He had perched on tip-toes at the drafty windowsill, peering through the cast glass with violet eyes wide. The stars had been lowered to earth and, even now, when he heard the popping sounds in the distance, he could only think of one thing.

Niilo had died along with the others when that awful sickness came several years ago, but every Independence Day since, when the handful of fireworks someone would manage to buy went off, everyone remembered him and his red hair with fondness and a hint of melancholy.

If he died, Tino wondered about what his name would be attributed to, if it could be attributed to anything at all. Would anyone look up at the sky and remember him with that same soft fondness they all held for Niilo? Tino didn't have any family to speak of, and he mostly stayed to himself in his small cabin on the small farm that had once been his parents'. He figured that if he was shot down right here and right now, Feija may feel sad for a bit, but he knew it would fade; that man was too bright and moved too fast to get caught up in the mess that was human beings. Upon further consideration, Tino realized that he likely meant nothing at all. He  _wanted_  to mean something. He  _wanted_  to be remembered fondly by someone, by anyone. God, he didn't want to die-

"'s time ta keep your eyes open," He could feel the firmness in Berwald's voice, but it wasn't the hard edge his father had possessed; it was a gentle resolve, pushing him, but not so much as to startle him into another world.

"What do I do?" It was a dumb question. God, what a dumb question. He knew what he was supposed to do.

"I know what I'm supposed to do, I'm sorry."

Berwald made a tiny sound in response, one that would have barely been audible even without the pattering of ammunition in the distance.

"Everyone, keep in mind that we don't exactly have a lotta ammunition," Oiva said, almost absentmindedly.

"How much is not a lot, old man?" Tino felt frustration radiate off of Lorens as he lifted his eye from his scope.

"I didn't count, maybe a couple dozen cartridges per person? Could be less, though, not sure."

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me. I didn't know our military was  _that_  unprepared," He let a frustrated huff.

It wasn't the military's fault, and Tino could tell Lorens knew that, so he didn't add his voice to the conversation. Casting blame was useless.

He looked back out, fixing his eye on the distance and, following in the wake of the small outcropping of flames, he saw men. Distant towers of gray rose from behind the snow drifts, surrounded by puffs of steam and breath from the sheer mass of them. Tino had no clue how many men were lingering around Terijoki on the Finnish side at the current moment, but he knew it was nothing near that. He could see them approaching, handing their weapons and marching through the calf-high snow. Their progress was slow, interspersed with firefight, but yet they encroached.

"When am I supposed to shoot?" The infantile quality of his question was not something he as unaware of.

"You'll feel the right moment," Oiva called to him. "It takes a while to develop the perfect timing, but you'll know."

Everything was a skill to be learned. He may have had a natural affinity for still targets, but talent alone would never be enough to develop the hard-earned skill of timing. Even the best carpenters at home were not born with the ability to cut the perfect slice of wood, after all. He felt a spark of wanting somewhere in his mind, of wanting to learn the ticking of a clock he could not yet hear, but then the realization that time never came cheaply surfaced, and he realized nothing could make him want a war long enough to develop proficiency, no matter how tantalizing the idea of a purpose was. He didn't want to die. He still didn't want this at all.

Noise burst forth from what Tino could feel was within their side of some tacit physical delineation. The Finns were ill-equipped, but still had some ability of their own. Another building collapsed in on itself as it was gutted by metal shrapnel. For a brief moment, he could have sworn he heard a shouted command in a language that wasn't their own.

As he searched the streets below him, he had yet to see a face not belonging to a Finn. The waving columns of men he had seen but minutes before had largely disappeared, undoubtedly scurrying to whatever positions they had been hastily assigned just the night before. He could envision it now: barricades scantly slapped together from wooden panels pried from houses, mounds of stiff snow, and god knows what else. There must have been pounding hearts and blood in ears and labored breathing as gunfire ricocheted around the ground troops.

In this delicate breath between the first shots and the wave of violence finally encroaching inward, time seemed unbearably slow. All Tino could stand to do was think, which was the last thing that he wanted to do at the same time. Of fireworks. Of wooden stoves. Of cobbled streets. Of first melt. Of first snow. Of cicadas. Of sugar beet. Of frozen streams and drowning and terror and lies and shitty vodka and frostlight and carmine and gulags and running and warmth. Of Feija.

Feija was a brilliant man, and Tino hated him for it. He had always been like that: too smart for his own good. His one close friend, reared not so far apart and maintaining those fragile bonds proximity bred, was one who had always borne the faint traces of a crown. The scars at his hairline proved it. A crown had been given to him since his fall from a great pine tree and he had gone out conquering and to conquer, ever since. He won the hearts of his elders first- teachers, parents, endearing shopkeepers on the main street. He was charming and charismatic and a million other things that enraptured them first, and his peers later. Tino was swept up in it all, too, to be fair; he wouldn't exclude himself from that. A star so bright in a town so mundane had the same effect on him as the fireworks did, and he was helpless not to approach it. Tino was more empty sky than star, so he supposed he complimented Feija in a sense. The dynamic of their friendship went something like this: Tino had been there for the school-year antics, for a boy left too attached after yet another two-week tryst ended, for a man with too much passion and not enough to  _do._  Feija helped coax a boy terrified of his own shadow into some semblance of normalcy, helped bring a man back into the world after death had swept over his life, helped drag a background character to parties and social events at the tavern. It was a bizarre sort of reciprocity, wherein Tino always felt he was more of a project than a true friend of Feija's, despite the semblance of emotional connectivity between the two of them. But, Feija was mostly all he had, and so he accepted his position and moved on with his life. Now, Feija was finally ripped from Tino's hands by his own choice, leaping onto a white horse and charging into the knee-high snow willingly. Endowed with something greater than all of them, Feija had never been destined to settle, and now he would be memorialized in books and poetry and songs no matter what happened here- today or next month or next century. And it infuriated Tino.

As his own death fired upon Finnish armaments, he felt that sense of inadequacy wash over him in unbearable waves. He would never stop chasing Feija's own radiance, but he'd be damned if, given the opportunity to acquire some of his own, he were to deny it. He was pushed onto this battlefield, and he would have to be pushed off.

The amount of resolve in his mind frightened him then, but upon the realization, he felt the shaking in his hands subside just the slightest bit. The smooth stock of his rifle felt surer in his fingers. The clarity, although mildly overwhelming, was something he felt he could become comfortable with, like knowing exactly when to seed, or when his tea water was the perfect temperature to not scald his tongue. Obviously, a war zone was a little different than tea, but he digressed. The feeling was one he could become accustomed to.

He heard a spray of gunfire somewhere ahead, closer than it had been before, but his stomach clenched a little less now.

The sun was still low, and although it felt like it had been hours, Tino had to guess that it hadn't been more than thirty minutes since the planes had first appeared. He realized that they hadn't made an appearance in some time- a thought which unsettled him.

"Where did those planes go?" He offered the question to the group and figured Oiva might be able to give them something back.

"Hey, if those fuckers don't want to fight us, that's there problem. Underestimatin' us, that's what I say." Lorens's commentary wasn't exactly the most helpful, but his come-and-get-me tone lightened the mood.

Oiva huffed, a puff of steam leaving his mouth. "As much as we'd all like that to be the answer, I think they probably just flew right past us. We're not worth the munitions. To Helsinki, maybe Espoo." His sentences were measured, considerate, and the amount of thought Tino could tell was put into them made him believe the man almost immediately. It made sense after all.

No one else commented on the subject matter, and Oiva's words hung in the air.  _To Helsinki, maybe Espoo_. He was right- the couple hundred resistance troops clad in their own ski gear at the border were hardly worth the materials and manpower in a war the Soviets were trying to take seriously. Strike right at the heart, don't waste time, and just go for the population centers. It was sensical, and militaristic, and seemed to fit within whatever reality they were living in now.

"Well, on the bright side, we won't have to deal with any sorta bombs or anything. Makes our lives a little safer." That was logical, too.

He could hear the skirmishes increasing in volume as the Soviet troops approached the thrown-together Finnish lines, with clashes of artillery and burst of fire from rifles here and there in the distance. When he said distance, he meant about 500 yards, which was not comforting in the slightest, even though they were hidden on a roof perch. If nothing else, they were still a bit behind lines and could feasibly make a quick escape if it became necessary.

Without his heart in his throat as much, Tino found this logical processing far easier than before. He could remember the buildings they'd passed on their way here, about how far away they were, about how far out the Soviets could reasonably protect themselves while still shooting, things like that. He could theoretically see himself getting used to it but, then again, the active warfare couldn't have been going on for more than an hour at this point, and exposure always changes people.

"Berwald?" He asked, eye still hovering in front of his scope.

He hummed in recognition.

"When's a good time to try to shoot? How far away?"

He tilted his head a bit and peeked over the ledge for a moment, before ducking back down. "Too far now," He stated. "Risk givin' away our posit'n. Wait 'til two hundred meters."

Just like Oiva, that made sense, so he settled for watching the waving figures of soldiers through his scope.

The Soviets didn't seem too well-equipped to be dealing with Finland's winter. They moved thickly, obvious in their gray uniforms, and stumbling about in the open. He supposed that with as many of them as there were, surprise wasn't necessarily something they needed, but considering the Finns could move much more easily, he thought it was a bit of a foolish decision. But again, he knew just how big their military was.

His thoughts returned to Feija, and he wondered where the man pulling the strings was. He'd likely chosen the units and positions of the men here, and men sent elsewhere (if they had sent anyone elsewhere). Tino figured that he was still huddled in his apartment-turned-office with that severe-cheekboned man who had seemed to despise Tino on principle. The thought of him holed up kilometers away sent a spike of anger through him, but he realized that if the Soviets cut off the head of the serpent, there likely wouldn't be two more heads to replace it. He was better off safer.

He had no idea who was commanding the field here. There must have been a man in charge, yet their dispersal had been so quick that whoever it was hadn't made themselves known.

"Is there someone commanding us here?" He had directed it towards Oiva, despite not looking towards anyone in particular.

"Yeah, Oksa's an old war buddy of mine from the civil war. We're in decent hands." Oiva had picked up that the question was for him.

"We'd better be." Lorens interjected. "Nothin' seems really put together around here."

"This isn't some well-planned novel. It's not gonna always work out perfectly, ya know."

"That's not what I was sayin',"

"I'm just tellin' ya you need to lower your expectations here. War's messy."

"I  _know_  that you damn old man," Lorens angrily settled further against the stock of his rifle, doing something that Tino could only call pouting.

 _Lay off of him, he's just a kid_ , he wanted to say. But then again, it's not like he knew any better than Lorens. He'd be lying to himself if he said he didn't have romantic visions of war in his head: the strategies going perfectly as planned, dramatic victories as the enemy commander fell at the hands of the bravest soldier, things like that. It was silly, and he acknowledged that, but it's not like he could imagine anything else. War was war, and he knew that, but nothing was going to prepare him for the things that were to unfold in front of him until the day the war ended.

War was suddenly very close to him as a stray bullet ricocheted off of the building some distance below where their heads sat. He heard Paulja execute a rather sharp intake of breath.

"Keep lookin' up," Berwald reminded him. "Gettin' closer now."

The gray haze had encroached, pushing their way through the alleys and blank space between buildings and empty roads. If he looked hard enough, he thought he could see red embroidered stars on several hats. They were just a street or two beyond the store with the children's' furniture, and he felt the pressure as they grew closer.

The heat of warfare that he knew the people below experienced seemed far way. Up on his perch, surrounded by a blank expanse of snow and empty railroad tracks, he felt just a bit safer, and a bit selfish in saying it. His mind was suddenly preoccupied with ways to run again. He could feel Feija's look back before the shelling, and the accusation in his eyes:  _coward_. He had no reason to disagree with him.

"Not quite, not quite…" He heard Oiva muttering to himself, index finger tapping his trigger lightly as he furrowed his brows.

Tino looked through his triangular scope, watching the Soviet approach with something like anticipation, or maybe dread, he couldn't tell. They were pushing on the Finnish lines, but looked to be coming to a stop as more exchanges of gunfire broke out. He could hear scattered voices rise above the now-still air, a mass of curses and yelps and commands. It all still felt far away.

He looked more keenly now as small crowds of men inched towards them, entering a zone within which Tino felt like he could accurately shoot. That frantic night that Berwald had come to settle in his house and he had run to the arms supply in town as the only outlet for his murder-induced anxiety, the most distant target, adjusted for the fact he was two stories above the ground now, was something like the same distance away as the outer fringes of the Soviet lines. Albeit unmoving targets, his accuracy hadn't wavered at that distance and, although he couldn't be sure his luck would serve him unflaggingly now, he thought he felt something resembling confident.

Berwald had been sleeping on his sofa for several days now and, to be frank, he looked just a bit ridiculous when Tino, the early riser that he was, emerged from his bedroom in the morning and was confronted with an entirely too large man draped over and hanging off of his furniture, completely unconscious. His feet, along with at least ten centimeters of his leg, would inevitably be dangling from the arm of the couch, and his head tipped back over its companion. He had to admit, he did like the company during breakfast, though. He had been eating alone for years, and being able to share his porridge or rye bread with someone in the morning was nice, for lack of a more apt word. He was also an incredibly quiet man who washed his dishes and kept himself tidy, so Tino could call him a bit of an ideal roommate.

He felt that they'd become just a bit more comfortable with each other as the initial awkwardness surrounding their partnership began to subside. It helped now, as he felt Berwald examining him from above.

"No wind now," He commented, peering out. "You'd be right ta fire soon." He had obviously been able to read, to some extent, what was going through Tino's mind.

With Berwald's blessing of sorts, he picked an isolated party of five men who had crept around the backside of a storefront, perhaps thinking of beginning to enclose the Finnish lines hundreds of meters out. Well, life was just one step at a time, wasn't it? They were clearly in view to him, wouldn't be able to mount some massive retaliation or easily identify where the shot would come from, and it felt safer to him knowing that. They were dug in, in a way, behind a natural snow bank above which their heads popped to take a shot, and promptly ducked behind. His window of time would likely be short, but people always took more than a second to aim, so hopefully he would have just enough time.

His safety had been off since that first plane had appeared in the sky, but he thumbed over it just to be sure, feeling it in the correct position. The artillery pieces thundered and spat below him and as time slowed, he saw a man's face- adorned with one hell of a hooked nose and mustache resembling Stalin's- rise from behind the snow.

His heart hammered yet his mind kept plodding on at a surprisingly mundane, normal sort of pace. It steadied his hands despite what he knew he was about to do, and he caught his breath so that he couldn't jostle anything. That had been something Berwald had mentioned the yesterday as they had discussed the basic premise of his job atop their new concrete home.

There was a tiny pressure on the pad of his finger as the trigger gave way and all that he could see was the man fall, and the bloody ghost of the Russian officer in the forest.

The remaining four men in the outlier group scattered like rats and he was left without a target.

"Nice shot, Tino," Oiva remarked casually from his position, staring intently as his finger stopped tapping his own trigger.

The recoil had slammed into his shoulder, but he had known it was coming and it didn't feel quite as jarring as it had the first time, even though a handgun hadn't physically impacted his body, while the smooth, thick stock of a rifle did. He lifted his eye from the piece and tried to look out below.

"Keep your head d'wn," Berwald said, somewhat sharply, but lowly.

He had mentioned something earlier about concealing your position, now that he thought about it.

As that trail was completed, a  _bang_  from his right jolted him into further awareness as Oiva tilted his head with satisfaction. Just as he was about to say something, Berwald tugged his right hand away from its grip on the gun and pushed a cartridge into his palm. He looked up and nodded in thanks, the warmth of his palm still lingering in the freezing morning. He clicked it into the rifle and watched the men below fight each other.

* * *

Lorens had missed his first, and second, shot. Tino could practically feel the boy's jaw clenching harder after each, and with every puff of air, he felt himself get just a little more anxious. Thinking about it, perhaps this was why armies tended to have minimum recruitment ages, to avoid enlisting kids who, regardless of skill, had scant control on their tempers.

If he was to be spending a war with the four other men on the rooftop, he felt as though he was entitled to have the basic questions answered, just as with friends or peers. Where are you from? Are you married, have anyone back home? What do you do for a living? Why are you here! Just the basics. Yet, Lorens volatile temperament and explosive reaction when asked about why he had come to an active warzone made Tino unsure as to whether he would ever receive those answers from him.

Berwald was a military man from Stockholm who enjoyed carpentry on the side, that he knew already. Paulja was a weatherman from Helsinki with a large extended family that all lived in the same building. Oiva was a farmer from an absolutely tiny village further south and he had once been married, but had lost his wife (he had yet to explain what had happened, but Tino was not one to press). Lorens was… an enigma to him still. His mind had run wild, of course, upon first meeting him. He was an angry teenager with a bone to pick who had run away from home in search of glory in an adolescence-fueled daydream of fame. He was an orphan with nothing to lose. He had been wronged by the Soviets somehow, and had come seeking revenge. Now, he knew those all sounded like bad novel plots, but he digressed. Someday, Lorens would let something, just a tiny detail, slip, and he would know something about him, at least.

The sun had crested in the sky and had begun to sink once more and, as it retreated towards the horizon, so too had the Finnish lines. They had been pressed back by dozens of meters, giving up ground reluctantly as their cover was shredded to bits by the bigger artillery pieces they lacked, but the Soviets took full advantage of. From his vantage point, he could see bodies left in the allies as those left alive had scrambled to grasp onto whatever modicum of safety they could get. Seeing the lost territory made him increasingly anxious as the shrapnel flew closer to where they were. He kept checking behind him, filled with paranoia that they would be closed in by stray soldiers they had missed sneaking further around them. Thankfully, nothing had come, leaving open their one probable escape route, but the comfort that provided was little.

When the store with the children's furniture had been blown open from behind, someone produced rye with nothing else, and they ate what would become a soldier's lunch for the duration of the war. And breakfast. And dinner.

"Lorens, did you ever hunt at home?" Oiva asked him, taking a break from firing and serving as a universal spotter for the group.

"No." Well, he obviously wasn't keen on divulging too much about himself. His tone was bordering on harsh.

"So, no practice with moving targets?"

Oiva received no response.

"Well, considering that, I wouldn't get too frustrated. Hitting moving things is a lot harder than anyone thinks at first."

"I don't need you underestimatin' me." That was the only reply he received.

Tino could sense him fuming from the advice, too blinded by some young pride to accept it. Everyone is briefly bullheaded in youth, and even Tino was no exception to that rule. He thought perhaps people could have been stripped of that when Soviets with big guns were getting closer to them a meter at a time, but apparently he hadn't given enough credit to human stubbornness.

Oiva gave up then, simply turning his head back out, monitoring the field below with the equipment Berwald had grabbed.

Tino was back on his belly after Berwald's last shift, and he had to say he preferred this to calling wind and the movement of the targets below. Berwald had a cooler head and better perspective- now that he had his glasses, that is- and seemed better suited to that job. From what Tino could tell when his partner took the gun, it seemed he enjoyed the other job more, as well.

After their initial attack, first with Tino's hit, then Oiva's, the Soviets had raised their heads less, wary of snipers of questionable position offing them before they even got the chance to fire back. Nothing had happened since that earlier part of the morning and, although Lorens had made a few attempts, no good moments had presented themselves, and so all they could do was watch the war rage below.

"How did you find yourself in the military considering Sweden is so neutral?" The question had been bothering him for some time now, watching the Volunteer Corps members flit about town.

Berwald looked down at him, and seemed to consider things for a moment. "Jus' felt right," He said, not offering anything else.

"I guess sometimes that's the best reason for something,"

He didn't know if he could say the same about joining the military. Actually, he did know, and the answer was that he couldn't. If it hadn't been for his relationship with Feija, he wouldn't have joined, and that he could say with an uncharacteristic amount of certainty. He had already killed two people who themselves had motivations and lives and dreams and people who cared about them, and it wasn't even his decision.

His train of thought was interrupted by a massive series of explosions and a cacophony of voices as a row of buildings erupted into flame, and he saw a dam break.

The lines split apart as Soviets rushed the men fleeing from the flames, engaging in uncomfortably close quartered, shoot-in-the-back fighting. An air of chaos descended upon the Finnish side.

He saw other positions vacate themselves as men scrambled to mend the break in their lines and those left behind fired with little to no aim into their enemies as they began to follow the lead of that first group.

"Shit," Oiva had lost his cooler edge.

Feeling a spike of fear again, Tino lowered his eye to his piece to see if he could reasonably land his sight on a singular man, but the newfound explosions of movement on all sides made picking a single target difficult. When he thought about his lack of experience, his stomach turned and any certainty he may have gained after the morning evaporated completely.

The firecracker sounds didn't stop. The foot soldiers kept firing at each other, taking temporary refuge behind a pile of snow, the remnants of a building, bodies in ceded territory. His opinion, although relatively uninformed, was that this was far from good.

Another  _bang_  from his right as Lorens's eyes lit up. "Ha! I got one! Take that, Soviet bastard!"

Oiva's head flipped to look at him, then over the roof's ledge to look below. His eyes darkened. "I don't think he's dead."

"I hit 'im, isn't that what matters?"

"Not if he can still kill our men, it isn't."

"Oh, so first you say hitting moving targets is so hard, then you just say that even when I hit 'em, it's not right."

"Now you're just puttin' words in my mouth."

Lorens's mood soured again as he looked out.

"Lorens," He said softly.

" _What_." His voice was sharp, bordering on enraged.

"You should go ahead and reload," He offered. "Get ready for whatever's next."

Lorens's face lost its hard edge just a bit as he acknowledged it, but said nothing. He grabbed a cartridge from next to him, flipped open the compartment, and clicked it into place.

He remembered reading a book, a bit of fiction he had found on a trip to one of the larger markets to the south, set during the Great War, its cover tattered and worn, that featured the story of a brave French commander who, in spite of being trapped in brutal no man's land, managed to get his unit to safety before the armistice. One thing that Tino remembered him doing was offering gentleness and kindness to people around him, even in regards to very mundane things. Now, Tino knew nothing about commanding a unit, but if all he had to reference was the mediocre story of a fictional Frenchman who had been painted as the archetypical good commander, then he would try his best and be gentle with the men around him.

The chaos wouldn't subside below and, as he looked out again, he saw their lines disintegrating, and Finns running. The Soviets were encroaching fast, pushing in from in front as well as beginning to curl around the sides. Resistance fighters had begun to consolidate around the several hundred meters spanning in front of them, trying their best to shoot and not be shot. They were getting closer and closer to them, and it made Tino suddenly feel far too high up to be able to run.

When he looked closely, he saw new men entering the town from the Russian side, not overloaded with weaponry and supplies, but walking immune through the snow. He could feel it then- Terijoki was a lost cause, and the commanders were coming to mark the snow with their boot prints.

The Soviet side may have had more men lying facedown in the snow, but he could see the tide turning irrecoverably toward them, leaving Tino and his people increasingly stranded at sea.

"I'm feelin' uneasy about this," Oiva pronounced, not even using his scope to look down, forsaking it entirely for just his own eyes. "Evacuation might not be the worst idea."

 _But people that_ matter _are coming this way_ , he thought. It seemed futile, to him, to have snipers fall regular people who would likely be killed by the onslaught of fire anyway, with or without a rooftop perch.

"I simply cannot die on my first day of service." Paulja had scarcely spoken since the evening before, and his voice was fraught with terror. Maybe that was why he had declined to speak before.

Tino watched the men with the different airs about them approach further. They had stopped after another man in a hat had presented himself and saluted, likely giving a report of the current situation. The tallest one, whose hazy figure he could make out the most clearly, seemed to be the one of the highest rank there, as that was the only man whose attention the reporter cared to get. He made a gesture and continued forward, accepting the man's words and moving on.

He was too far way, but the action was tempting.

"We can stay a bit longer," He said it with a little more surety than he was sure he possessed. "We have time."

"You're cuttin' it close, Tino."

"But we still have  _time_." He repeated, not looking at Oiva. He may have had experience, but Tino felt something, and Oiva had mentioned sense of timing. Perhaps he was being given a glimpse of that now.

The powerful man and his companions had grown closer, becoming less hazy. He walked past the ruins of the town and paid them little mind, as if he was completely separated from them. Aloof, distant.

He could decipher shouts in Finnish below now, quite clearly, "Run", "Move", and "Cover" being the most common words he caught. The fact that they were close enough to be understood was frightening, but Tino had developed tunnel vision. Perhaps it was to counteract the terror of what was coming below, but he found himself completely able to ignore the increasingly loud sprays of bullets.

"I'm sorry Tino, but we need to leave now if we want to scale the building in time."

"Please wait," He said, hearing Oiva hastily packing away the spotter's equipment and slinging his rifle over his shoulder, along with the small bag of supplies he'd brought.

"For what? We're gonna get caught up in the oncoming soldiers. You really wanna kill yourself on your first mission?" He had already crawled over to the edge of the building that they had surmounted to get to the roof.

"There's a man. He looks important. I might just be able to-"

"Are you kidding? That party is way too far out to even remotely hit. Come  _on_."

He heard Paulja give a word of agreement, scrabbling over to the edge as well. Berwald had moved to a crouching position, but was staying next to him. He could feel uncertainty from Lorens.

The man had come even closer, and he could discern the sun glint off of what he presumed to be a row of medals, and a long cream scarf fastened to his neck to ward off the brutal cold. Low-ranked soldiers didn't just have medals pinned to their chest. He was still just too far out.

"File me for insubordination, I'm leaving now. Tino," Oiva had swung himself over the wall, and he could feel the animus he had directed towards him.

"Fifteen seconds, please, that's all I'm asking,"

"Tino-"

"Ten seconds,"

" _Tino_." His words sounded final.

He had the man between his sights now, although he couldn't be sure which part of him he'd hit if he fired now.

He heard Oiva start another ream of protest, and he saw Lorens fall back to the roof's edge.

"Tino," It was Berwald's voice- calm, quiet, just firm enough to make him listen.

He understood. He didn't want to die today.

He pulled the trigger anyway, and saw the figure stumble, but time precluded him from seeing whether it was a death knell or a movement of surprise from the whiz of a bullet right by him.

" _Perkele_ , I'm coming," He grabbed his gun and crawled to swing himself over onto the building's ladder, with Berwald following right behind him.

Their descent was fast, hastened by the encroaching sound of gunfire and Russian. The second his feet hit the snow again, he found his veins full of adrenaline, and immediately took off towards the clearing in which they'd been deposited yesterday. From his periphery, he saw other soldiers joining their flight, arms pumping frantically as their legs fought the snow each laborious meter.

He hadn't had the time to properly attach his rifle to himself, so he simply ran with it still clenched in his right hand, using it to give himself a bit more momentum as he quite literally ran for his life.

He couldn't track how far they had actually run by the time they reached the small fleet of hastily scrambled trucks again, but his thighs would be shreds of muscle for the next several days from the intensity with which he had sprinted the distance. As they breeched the sheltered clearing, the vehicles had already started to move, filled with men whose white coats were stained with black and red. Their speed increased then, desperate to not get left behind in a town that would likely kill them the moment they were found.

The gap closed as the trucks began to leave tire tracks in the snow, and he saw Paulja climb into the one nearest to them, followed by Lorens nearly launching himself to safety, with Oiva and Berwald, who had passed him just before reaching the clearing, rounding out the rest. The vehicle began moving faster and Tino's legs could only carry him so quickly. Suddenly more panicked than he had probably ever been in his life, he frantically reached his left arm out, desperately hoping he was close enough for someone to reach him.

His lungs were screaming.

Berwald, arms extended and strong, missed his hand once, then grabbed it harder than anyone before him had, nearly crushing it as he pulled upward, Tino's foot managing somehow to hit the rung designated as a foothold on the bed. He came crashing into the truck, tumbling to the floor along with his savior, who still managed to pull him back and away from the open end of the speeding vehicle.

His breathing was so fast he didn't think he was capable of talking, but he looked back at Berwald, eyes holding everything he had, and he thought he saw a strong spark of recognition in the other man's eyes as he finally let go of his hand. He nodded quickly, glasses askew from the fall, breath puffing out in the cold air. They looked at each other for a long moment, then Tino's attention turned to the scenery rapidly retreating behind them as they drove to what was hopefully safety.

Terijoki spat plumes of smoke as buildings burned themselves out, and he thought he could see a wall of men watching them flee from the very edge of civilization. The whole specter was an ink-dark scar on the crisp white scene in which it was set and, coated in the honeyed light of the finished day, it seemed to be a town in mourning of itself.

* * *

_November 30th, 1939_

_..._

Of course he had to step foot where it had started.

Terijoki, from the ground, looked different from Mainila, even though it was burning. When his plane had landed, the snow there felt to him like the Soviet winter, and it felt like home. Terijoki was theirs, unquestioningly, unflinchingly, and the Finnish and Soviet bodies bleeding out onto the snow were proof of that. Soviet blood for their sacrifice, Finnish blood for the quashed invaders. He stepped carefully to avoid staining his boots; after all, supply was limited and the last thing that he wanted was to be left with dirty equipment.

The warfare was still going on, but he made sure to stay far enough away so as to not risk an accidental casualty. Most of the buildings around him were low, if they were still standing at all, so he didn't worry about rooftop units left behind as the Finnish lines had receded. The sounds beyond him were somewhat deafening as the Finns gave the dying gasps of their last defense. He was relatively certain that they would withdraw entirely from the battlefield soon rather than go out in a blaze of glory. They were definitely not the vastly superior force, after all.

There were two men with him, along with Nika, who had flown them from the same base they had taken off from when she had shelled Mainila on his orders. The two men were of lower station than he was, but they had come from the more central command positions, and he knew he would have to placate them just a bit as they talked about his strategy for the war.

Not many good officers were left after the most recent purges, and Ivan knew this. He was lucky to have escaped with his life, a fact that he knew he owed likely to his youth. He hadn't had enough time to make the mistakes that mattered. So he may have been spared, but few intelligent high-ranking officers were left, and that created some significant problems as they progressed towards their war. They may have won this battle, but the stakes were low, and the opposition small. What would happen if something more were at risk? He wasn't a ground commander, that he was certain of, and he had to trust the most volatile aspect of command to other people, those whom he knew were deficient. He couldn't say this, of course, to the two men who were with him, but he knew it would be a fact to haunt him for the duration of his career.

"All seemed to have gone well," Commented one of them, taking his time examining the shattered remnants of stores and homes. "The troop loss may have been a bit high, though."

"I can agree with that," Ivan supplied, not denying the obvious fact. "But, keep in mind the size of our army. A few dozen men here and there will not cripple us."

The man hummed in agreement, accepting his point with no complaint.

As they grew closer, slowly but surely maintaining their pace, Ivan could begin hearing snips of shouted interactions between the soldiers ahead as they pressed their opponents even further forward, at this point mostly abandoning the larger pieces and simply shooting with rifles and automatic weapons to drive the Finns into submission.

He had to admit, they stuck out in the snow, their dark gray uniforms entirely too visible, while he had trouble pinpointing the positions of the still-fighting Finns. It was disadvantageous, but Ivan could not infect an army-wide supply change, even if he wanted to. They still had the technical and numerical advantage, and that was going to have to be enough in the months to come.

A man approached them, breathing hard, and finally stopped about a meter or so in front of him, identifying that he was the man he should be addressing. He saluted him quickly, waited for acknowledgement, which Ivan gave, and began a report.

"Sir, although casualties are higher than expected, we have gained significant ground today, and expect an end to the fighting by the next hour," He gulped another breath of air. "Finnish artillery was weak, and their numbers were inferior to our own," Another breath. "We didn't expect snipers, but we think there are a couple stationed somewhere. Haven't been able to figure out where."

"Anything else?" Nothing Ivan had heard was unexpected at this point.

"No, sir." The soldier, sensing Ivan's willingness was all but gone, saluted again and pushed through the snow back to his own unit.

The shift was palpable in the air, and he felt the Finns' resolve crumble and the intrinsically human desire to survive over all else take over from across the field. Things would be over soon, and his new task would be to plan their next terms of engagement.

"We can probably leave soon," Nika supplied from behind him. "This isn't big enough to warrant us staying here."

"Mm," He nodded in agreement. "Let me just stay for a little bit longer. I want to have an accurate account to give to Afanas." It wasn't a request, but an order, and he stated it knowing that absolutely no one within dozens of kilometers could deny him. His rise may have come unnaturally fast due to circumstance, but the amount of control and power that it gave him was one that he was beginning to crave more and more.

They proceeded forward, not even engaging in small talk, but simply taking in the sounds of the receding warfare. There was a strange sort of melody to it, and Ivan found himself understanding the allure the ground commanders spoke of. The chaos of the ammunitions and the noise and the shrapnel resounded with something primal and base within him.

His hands were beginning to grow colder in his gloves- perhaps he should have worn something more substantive than leather with a thin layer of lining- and as he turned to make a comment to Nika, the right side of his neck lit up in pain as a track of his skin was torn away, and the nerves underneath screamed as his blood, hot and sticky, leaked down the collar of his uniform and into his scarf.

The pain was so sharp it knocked the breath out of him, even though he knew instinctually that it wasn't much more than a graze, and in a moment of embarrassing weakness, he let out a noise he wouldn't be proud to own up to later on to Nika. He grabbed for his neck and pressed his scarf deep into the wound, trying to press the fabric with as much force as his shocked mind could muster to staunch the flow of heat running down his chest now. In his pain, he looked up, searching for where the shot could have come from, and was met with the light expanse of a railroad depot; it was the only building high enough to have given someone a good enough vantage point to fire as far as they had.

" _Shit_ ," That was the only word that he could generate as the reality of what had happened washed over him.

As the Finnish army fled, with it the insolent man who had dared to try and kill him, all that Ivan could think of was something sharp inside of him, accompanied with a rage so pure, and so blinding, that it overwhelmed him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that you enjoyed this chapter (after the lengthy delay)! I am officially switching to a (approximately) monthly schedule, so updates will be more frequent from here on out.
> 
> If you have questions and comments you really want interaction with, please go to my tumblr: onebillionstars!
> 
> I'll also post updates, excerpts, and extra little things on there, so check it out!

**Author's Note:**

> Please review! 
> 
> Now on a MONTHLY update schedule.
> 
> Status updates and tidbits will be posted on my tumblr: onebillionstars


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